46 - 1Jn 3:13-15
Μὴ θαυμάζετε ἀδελφοί μου, εἰ μισεῖ ὑμᾶς ὁ κόσμος. ἡμεῖς οἴδαμεν ὅτι μεταβεβήκαμεν ἐκ τοῦ θανάτου εἰς τὴν ζωὴν, ὅτι ἀγαπῶμεν τοὺς ἀδελφούς· ὁ μὴ ἀγαπῶν τὸν ἀδελφὸν, μένει ἐν τῷ θανάτῳ. Πᾶς ὁ μισῶν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὑτοῦ, ἀνθρωποκτόνος ἐστί· καὶ οἴδατε ὅτι πᾶς ἀνθρωποκτόνος οὐκ ἔχει ζωὴν αἰώνιον ἐν αὐτῷ μένουσαν. The following verses certainly make an application of this scriptural example to the relation between Christians and the world. There is still a Cain on a large scale, which is the world; and there is an Abel, which is the Christian church. What wonder is it if the same relations are sustained which we see in the primitive times between the two brothers! But what direction does the teaching of the apostle seem to take, when carefully examined? Does he aim really to show that the world corresponds to Cain, and we to Abel,—that is, will he assure us that the hatred of the world as being evil is naturally excited against us as being good? The form which the writer has given to his present thought does not accord with this. In such a case lie must evidently have thrown the accent upon the fact that the world hates us, and assigned as the obvious reason of it that we were good and the world evil. But it is not so ordered: he speaks only of the loving and hating of brethren; an expression which does not point to the great difference in character between the parties as an explanation of the hatred, but, on the contrary, shows how unnatural the feeling is as between persons of the same nature. And were that other order of thought the right one, the conclusion would have been drawn from the character as a whole to the consequent hatred or love; while the apostle conversely concludes from the existence of hatred or love what is the ethical character as a whole. All this leads us to another analysis of the three verses before us. The apostle does not mean to indicate how natural it is(μήθαυμάζετε [“do not be surprised”])that the world hates us, but that the world hates: the stress is not on the object hated, but on the subject hating. This is evident, first, from the emphasis laid on theἡμεῖς [“us”]of 1Jn 3:14, as over against theκόσμος[“world”] of1Jn 3:13; and it is confirmed by the marked position of the κόσμος[“world”] at the end of the sentence. It is natural for the world to hate,—the apostle proceeds,—for hatred is simply a sign of the death into which the world, according to the true idea of the world, has fallen; while the Christian must love, because he, by his very nature, belongs to the life. Thus the section does not by any means contain consolation as to the world’s hatred which falls upon Christians, but is simply adehortationfrom hatred: the world, and only the world, can hate; there is nothing strange in its hating; and this makes it clear that the Christian cannot and may not hate. In1Jn 3:13 the object of the hatred is added(ὑμᾶς [“you”]),not because the following observations have reference to this, but simply in remembrance of the preceding comparison between Cain and Abel; the progress of the thought does not rest upon this, that the world hates us, but that the world hates. That hatred is characteristic of the world, the apostle dilates upon in two ways; first, by showing that the token of divine life is love, the very opposite of hatred (1Jn 3:14
It is not, however, that we know ourselves to be children of God, but that we have become such, that we have passed from death unto life; for every Christian has the conscious ness that by nature he also belonged to the world, and was withdrawn from it only through a μετανοεῖν [“repentance”]. That in the second hemistich the apostle does not say, as a formal parallel, “the world abides in death, because it does not love (causa cognitionis),” but constructs the clause generally, “He that loveth not, abideth in death,” has its reason in this, that he is not really thinking of the world, but refers his dehortation to Christians alone. All who hate, be they who they may, and ye also, therefore, if in this ye are conformed to the world, are fallen under the power of death. That this is the case the apostle makes still more emphatic, when in 1Jn 3:15 he makes hatred equivalent to murder, which manifestly and obviously pertains to death. But this is not meant to prove that the hater is essentially a murderer, that, as the common exposition runs, hatred is the germ of murder; for, while it would follow from this that the murderer must have been a hater, the converse would not follow, that every hater is already a murderer; and yet this was to be proved. Rather the congruence between the two lies in this, that in hatred there is no element wanting which is contained in murder, that the animating thoughts of the hater and the murderer are the same. In both, the existence of the brother is opposed to me, and I seek to take it away: inwardly in hatred, denying him existence in my thoughts; in murder outwardly, seeking to remove him out of the world of the living. As the thought not uttered aloud does not essentially differ from the thought spoken out, no more does hatred differ from murder. If it does not lead to murder, that may be due to accidental circumstances, not inherent in the hatred itself, that hinder; and then there is no difference between it and murder in the moral estimate. Or it may be that I hate another not enough to murder him; and in that case hate is not present in the full comprehensiveness and maturity of its idea. But a murderer, the apostle goes on to say, hath not eternal life abiding in him; and by the οἴδατε [“you know”] declares that to be a fact which needs no demonstration. Here it is primarily obvious in this passage that ζωὴαἰώνιος [“eternal life”] has in it no thought of time, but is altogether an ethical idea or characteristic: for, if we would take it in the sense of ζωὴἀκατάλυτος [“indestructible life”], it is clear that an οὐ μένειν [“not abide”] of the ζωὴἀκατάλυτος [“indestructible life”] would be a contradictio in adjecto. And the expression οὐ μένειν [“not abide”] leads us to infer that the apostle is really addressing his inference to the readers themselves as a dehortation, and not speaking objectively concerning the world; for they alone have as yet received a portion in this life, and it is they alone who could undervalue and lose this prerogative. That the murderer is under the power of death, is placed in a clear light by the consistency between his nature and his act: he who would deliver others to death is himself in the power of a much more fearful death; what he purposes for others affects himself in a much higher degree. As God can give nothing but life, because He is Himself life, so he who is under the power of death can effect only death. Thus has the apostle, not only by the example of Cain, but also by dialectical argument, shown that hatred is a token of being bound in death, that therefore only the world can hate; and thus he has in the most urgent way warned his readers against hatred. And here we have another instance of the double-sidedness of treatment which abounds in this Epistle: on the one hand, the warning against hatred, and, on the other, the presupposition (1Jn 3:14