1Jn 3:11
Ὅτι αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ ἀγγελία ἣν ἠκούσατε ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς, ἵνα ἀγαπῶμεν ἀλλήλους· The declaration, that he who loveth not his brother is not of God (1Jn 3:10b), is established by the fact that the church had received the commandment of brotherly love ἀπ᾽ἀρχῆς [“from the beginning”]. A commandment which had been impressed among the first fundamental ideas of Christianity, which had further been, enforced ever anew (ἀπό [“from”]), must assume a central position, and be decisive concerning the εἶναι ἐκΘεοῦ [“to be of God”]. The words obviously point back to 1Jn 2:7, where the ἀκούεινἀπ᾽ἀρχῆς [“to hear from the beginning”] a similar way referred to brotherly love. The same reasons in this passage and in that make it impossible to refer the ἀρχή[“beginning”] to the Old Testament economy; in both the beginning of the Christian estate of the church is intended. The matter of the announcement here before us—for ἀγγελία [“message”], not ἀπαγγελία[“proclamation”], is the approved reading—is at the same time its end and purpose: that the matter is brotherly love is testified by the αὕτη [“this”]; that it is the purpose ἵνα [“that”] declares. Though these two distinct ideas, thus indicated by the αὕτη [“this”] and the ἵνα [“that”] and as it were blended together, did not present themselves as sharply defined to the first readers, yet it is to be observed that both language and the truth it delivers often mean more than either speaker or hearer is conscious of; and the expositor—especially of the poets in classical literature, and more especially still in sacred literature—has a right to take into account the full scope of the words, unless, indeed, the meaning of the whole shows that part of this scope is rendered impossible.
