78 - 1Jn 5:14
Καὶ αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ παῤῥησία ἣν ἔχομεν πρὸς αὐτὸν, ὅτι ἐάν τι αἰτώμεθα κατὰ τὸ θέλημα αὐτοῦ, ἀκούει ἡμῶν. This assurance, that we are partakers of a true and divine life, produces in us παῤῥησία [“boldness”] as it respects God,—the sentiment of unity with Him, and therefore of perfect freedom, or the unrestrained and unreserved utterance of our whole thought. But the apostle has not in view here, as in the second division of the Epistle he had, the approval of this confidence at the day of judgment. Here, at the close of all, he points rather to the fruit which this parrhesia already bears in our experience, in the confirmation even now of our possession of the ζωὴαἰώνιος [“eternal life”]. It takes the form of confidence in prayer, founded upon the assurance of being heard. But prayer here comes into consideration only in its intercessory character, as 1Jn 5:16 shows. This, however, is not an isolated thought which is made prominent at this point for practical reasons; it will be seen to correspond with the general tone of the Epistle, when we reflect that it regards the whole life of prayer as finding its deep expression in prayer for others. We have seen in previous expositions that St. John subsumes our whole religious life under the one commandment of brotherly love; that he regards our entire moral obligation as discharged in this precept; and hence it is plain that there was to him no other prayer imaginable than that which in its issue should be bound up with our brethren. If I pray for my own person, it is that I may become a living member of the kingdom of God; but my place in the kingdom of God is conditioned by this, that I am helpful to my brethren in that kingdom. Accordingly, the final, at least the indirectly final, end of all prayer—viewed from the point which connects our whole life with the service of the divine kingdom—must be prayer for the salvation of our brethren. The κοινωνίανμετ᾽ἀλλήλων [“fellowship with one another”], which it was the apostle’s aim in 1Jn 1:4 to help to its perfection, is in its deepest principle fellowship in prayer. It is remarkable that at the close of several of the catholic Epistles we find an exhortation to intercession for sinful brethren. Compare the close of the Epistle of St. James and 1Pe 4:8, πρὸ πάντων δὲ τὴν εἰς ἑαυτοὺς ἀγάπην ἐκτενῆ ἔχοντες, ὅτι ἀγάπη καλύψει πλῆθος ἁμαρτιῶν [“above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins”]. We may appeal also to Rev 2:4, where it is the reproach of this very Ephesian church ὅτι τὴν ἀγάπην σου τὴν πρώτην ἀφῆκας [“that you have left your first love”]. Though, primarily, it is the love of God which there is spoken of as grown cold, yet in our Epistle St. John establishes so close a connection between the love of God and the love of the brethren, that the coldness of the one must needs draw after it, or with it, the coldness of the other. Our passage, and that of 1Jn 3:21 to which it refers back, are not the only ones in which the most intimate connection is established between παῤῥησία [“boldness”] and prayer. We may compare also Eph 3:12, παῤῥησίακαὶπροσαγωγή [“boldness and access”]; and Heb 4:16, προσερχώμεθα μετὰ παῤῥησίας τῷ θρόνῳ τῆς χάριτος [“let us approach the throne of grace with boldness”]. It must be carefully noted that the apostle does not write that the parrhesia consists in our knowing that God hears us, but that it consists in this, that God heareth us. And yet the parrhesia is a subjective feeling, while God’s hearing is an objective fact: now this pregnant juxtaposition of the two ideas is intended to make prominent the indissoluble connection between the Lord’s hearing prayer and the joy of man in offering it. In all cases in which God heareth, there is necessarily joyful confidence in praying, and never otherwise; conversely, whenever there is this joyful confidence, there is also the ἀκούειν [“to hear”] of God. It is obvious, however, that supplication κατὰ τὸ θέλημα αὐτοῦ [“according to his will”] is the presupposition both of the ἀκούειν [“to hear”] and of the παῤῥησία [“boldness”]. By this, indeed, the apostle does not so much mean to warn against carnal requests, such as the sons of thunder addressed once to their Master and received a rejecting answer; in the present connection, spiritual things alone are concerned; the thought of external and temporal matters of desire are far from the apostle’s mind; and to introduce them here would be to bring a perfectly foreign element into the train of thought. 1Jn 5:6 sheds the true light on our passage: there is a certain kind of prayer even in spiritual matters which is not according to the divine will; which, therefore, is neither heard by God nor offered with perfect confidence by man.