15 - 1Jn 2:4
Ὁ λέγων, “ἔγνωκα αὐτὸν,” καὶ τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ μὴ τηρῶν, ψεύστης ἐστὶ, καὶ ἐν τούτῳ ἡ ἀλήθεια οὐκ ἔστιν. The former of these two clauses corresponds with perfect exactness to 1Jn 1:6. It is true that, in the place of the expressly conditional ἐάν τις εἴπῃ [“if someone says”] there, we have here the more positive term ὁ λέγων [“the one who says”], which is the form that rules the whole of this new section; but it is obvious that the meaning is the same. The uniformity of the external construction within the two sections,—in the one always ἐάν [“if”], in the other always the nominative participle,—as also the slight change of form between the two, serve only to set the parallelism of the thoughts in a light doubly clear. Further, that the ἔγνωκα αὐτὸν [“know him”] in our passage corresponds as to its substance with the assertion κοινωνίαν ἔχομεν μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ [“we have fellowship with him”], 1Jn 1:6, we have just now seen; and it is equally obvious that the μὴ τηρεῖντὰς ἐντολάς [“to not keep commandment”] runs parallel here with the περιπατεῖνἐντῷ σκότει [“walking in darkness”] there. The form of the condemning conclusion is, with all the similarity of contents in the two passages, rather different; and that difference presents a slight change in the thought. In 1Jn 1:1-10 the conclusion lays down two kinds of activity, ψεύδεσθαι [“to lie”] and ἀλήθειανοὐ ποιεῖν [“not do the truth”]; but here we have, on the contrary, two states or conditions, that of ψεύστης εἶναι [“to be a liar”] and that in which a man is not partaker of the truth. In the former it is said that the original pattern of truth, its full reality, the real substance of the divine being, does not communicate itself to the man; here it is said that generally it is not in him.