65 - 1Jn 4:17
Ἐν τούτῳ τετελείωται ἡ ἀγάπη μεθ᾽ ἡμῶν, ἵνα παῤῥησίαν ἔχωμεν ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῆς κρίσεως, ὅτι καθὼς ἐκεῖνός ἐστι, καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐσμεν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ τούτῳ. But this 1Jn 4:17 has its difficulties, by no means insignificant. First, as to the direct meaning of the particles ἐν τούτῳ [“by this”], ἵνα [“so that”], ὅτι [“because”]. The ἐν τούτῳ [“by this”] which leads off in the verse may refer either to what follows or to what precedes. In the former case it must receive its specification of contents by a clause in the sequel; and this it might first receive through the sentence with ἵνα [“so that”], which must in that case have its telic meaning modified, or, secondly, through that with ὅτι [“because”]. This latter, however, is rendered intolerable by the extremely hard trajection which it would assume. How could the apostle have in such a way rent asunder the ἐν τούτῳ ὅτι [“by this because”] so strictly united? Much better than that would it be to accept the former, which makes the clause with ἵνα [“so that”] the substance or matter that the ἐν τούτῳ [“by this”] refers to. This would follow the analogy of 1Jn 3:11, 1Jn 3:23, where the means through which love is brought to perfection are at the same time the end to be attained. We should have then presented to us two thoughts interpenetrating each other: the confidence as to the end is the highest consummation of actual love; but it is at the same time the goal to which that love aspires, and at which it aims. But with regard to this we must observe, in the first place, that St. John, while he uses the combination αὕτη ἵνα [“for this”], τοῦτοἵνα [“for this”], ταῦτα ἵνα [“for these things”], gives us no other example than this of ἐν τούτῳ ἵνα [“by this so that”]: Joh 15:8 has it, but it is obvious that the sense there decidedly requires the ἐν τούτῳ [“by this”] to be referred to what precedes. Again, we certainly find the combination ἐν τούτῳ ὅτι... ἐάν [“by this because ... if”], 1Jn 2:3, but never once that of ἐν τούτῳ ἵνα ὅτι [“by this because so that”]. All this of course does not prove that St. John could not have written thus. Proof, however, that he did not, may be gathered from the connection of the passage. If we refer ἐν τούτῳ [“by this”] to what follows,—that is, to the clause with ἵνα [“so that”],—we absolutely take away the bridge between what has gone before and the new section. The apostle had just been saying (1Jn 4:12), that in brotherly love ἡ ἀγάπη αὐτοῦ τετελειωμένη ἐστὶν ἐν ἡμῖν [“his love is made perfect in us”]; again, he here suddenly announces that it is perfected in parrhesia or assurance: but as to how these two are related he suggests not a word of explanation. Asain, if we translate it to the effect that love is fulfilled in this, that we have confidence in the day of judgment, we obviously defer its perfection to the future; but how does that accord with the fundamental ἐσμενἐν τῷ κόσμῳτούτῳ [“we are in this world”]?
Now we escape from all these difficulties, and place our passage where it both gives and receives light, if we refer the ἐν τούτῳ [“by this”] to what precedes, following examples which abound in St. John; compare, for example, 1Jn 2:6; Joh 4:37; John 15:8, John 16:30. What ἐν τούτῳ [“by this”] means is then the μένειν ἐν Θεῷ καὶ Θεὸνἐν ἡμῖν [“abide in God and God in us”] of 1Jn 4:16,—that is, the “this” points to the conclusion of the entire preceding development of the thought. The first half of our verse is therefore to be translated to this effect: in the reciprocal relation of fellowship betwixt God and us, love is—μεθ᾽ ἡμῶν [“with us”] may wait awhile for its examination—perfected, to the end that—the goal which this earthly perfection arrives at—we may have confidence in the day of judgment. This verse is thus, in fact, the precise close or pendant of that beginning in 1Jn 2:28: there we have μένεινἐν αὐτῷ [“abide in him”], ἵνα ὅταν φανερωθῇ [“so that when he appears”], ἔχωμενπαῤῥησίαν [“we may have boldness”]; here, by the help of ἐν τούτῳ [“by this”], we have again the abiding in God corresponding with that; to the φανεροῦσθαι [“to make known”] there the ἡμέρατῆςκρίσεως [“day of judgement”] answers here; while the ἔχεινπαῤῥησίαν [“to have boldness”] is common to the two passages in the very letter, and, similarly, the reference to the end in the μένεινἐν αὐτῷ [“abide in him”]. But, as befits the closing idea of a section, the abiding in God is no longer here an exhortation as in 1Jn 2:28, but something assumed, already to exist as a consummated reality ἐν τούτῳ τετελείωται [“by this is perfected”]. The words τετελείωται ἡ ἀγάπη μεθ᾽ ἡμῶν [“love is perfected in us”] are new in this passage; they are wanting in 1Jn 2:28; in them lies the whole argument in nuce which the apostle has been conducting. Why is the μένων ἐν Θεῷ [“abiding in him”] full of confidence and joy? Answer: because this μένειν [“to abide”] contains in itself the perfecting of love, and thus of itself renders possible and actually produces a free uplifting of the eyes and a free opening of the mouth even in the presence of God the Judge of all. That which is perfected, which has reached perfection, is love. For the μεθ᾽ ἡμῶν [“with us”] which follows must not be combined with the ἀγάπη [“love”]: not only on account of the absence of the article, but, as we have seen in the similar combination of 1Jn 4:9, on account of the sense. What can ἀγάπημεθ᾽ ἡμῶν [“love with us”] be supposed to mean? Love between us,—that is, God and men? But it need not be again observed that God and men cannot be conjoined by ἡμεῖς [“we”]. Is it our own mutual love? That would require the ἀλλήλων [“one another”]. Or is it the love, scilicet, of God with us,—that is, again, the relation of love between God and men? Apart from the harshness of such a contorted sentence, we should then expect, of necessity, ἀγάπηαὐτοῦ [“his love”]. The only thing possible, and that which is of itself the most probable, is to take ἀγάπη [“love”] in the same meaning which, since 1Jn 4:9, has been demanded: as the divine love, the love which God has, and which He sends down into the spirit of man. The μεθ᾽ ἡμῶν [“with us”] is to be connected with the verb,—that is, with the τετελείωται [“perfected”],—and testifies that the love among Christians, within the church, has reached this perfection: the apostle does not, indeed, write to any individuals as individuals, but to the members of the congregation as such. In the midst of the church alone, but certainly there, is to be found such a consummation of love, such a perfection of fellowship with God. Two things are inseparably bound up in the text. The infusion of divine love in the heart of man establishes the principle of this fellowship; the development of this principle or germ in continued brotherly love brings this germinal fellowship with God to its perfection; and this perfected fellowship with Him is again the perfecting of love. Communion with God and love are reciprocal ideas; they require each other, and are each the other’s condition; and the growth of the one carries with it ever the growth of the other.
It being now clear in general, that perfected love must produce confidence or parrhesia in the day of judgment, the apostle proceeds to unfold this connection between the two in detail; first setting out with the clause which has its argument of proof in the ὅτι [“because”]. The passage runs, καθὼς ἐκεῖνός ἐστι, καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐσμεν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ τούτῳ [“just as he is, we also are in this world”]. The words are obscure. Their explanation must start from the sure basis that the concluding words ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ τούτῳ [“in this world”] cannot refer to both parts of the comparison, but only to the latter part. Otherwise, that is, the ἐστί [“to be”] would have been found altogether absent; and, moreover, we cannot see then how either generally or in the present connection it can be asserted that Christ still is (for the ἐστίν [“to be”] is certainly not equivalent to ἦν [“to exist”]) in this world in the same manner as we are. Precisely the converse of this is the truth. Thus the apostle will affirm, as we gather at once, an equality between Christ as He now is, that is, the glorified Christ, or as He has ever been and still is—this is also possible—the Son of God, and us in our condition below not yet made perfect. But how may we now more precisely apprehend the tertium comparationis? The expression itself is so general, that it can be understood only from the whole system of the apostle’s thinking, and not from itself alone. Now, as there is hardly an important phrase in the whole Epistle which does not rest upon the Gospel, and as, in particular, the matter of the thought in the section just studied, 1Jn 4:9 ff., is based upon Joh 3:16, so we shall find it in the present passage. The explanatory text in the Gospel is Joh 17:21 ff.; the Lord declares there that He is no more in the world, but that the disciples are in the world,—the same antithesis which we have now before us,—and He asks the Father, who had hitherto kept them in fellowship with Him, to keep them still, and with them all who should believe on Him through their ministry: not taking them out of the world, but so ordering it that (Joh 17:21) καθὼς σὺ πάτερ ἐν ἐμοὶ, κἀγὼ ἐν σοὶ, ἵνα καὶ αὐτοὶ ἐν ἡμῖν ἓν ὦσιν [“even as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us”]. Compare, further, Joh 17:26, ἵνα ἡ ἀγάπη ἣν ἠγάπησάς με, ἐν αὐτοῖς ᾖ, κἀγὼ ἐν αὐτοῖς [“so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them”], and Joh 17:23, κἀγὼ ἐν αὐτοῖς καὶ σὺ ἐν ἐμοί [“I also in them and you in me”]. These passages throw on our present one a clear and steady light: as Christ is one with the Father, in inseparable fellowship with Him, so we are to be indissolubly united with Him, although we are still in this world and while we are still in this world. And this takes place, as in our passage through the τελείωσις [“perfection”] of the ἀγάπη [“love”], so according to Joh 17:26 through the love wherewith God loves Christ dwelling in us. In this perfect fellowship with the Father consisted the whole life, essence, and being of the Lord upon earth, and in that it exists from everlasting to everlasting: hence the absolute καθὼς ἐστιν [“just as he is”]. And as in this fellowship with God (ἐν τούτῳ [“by this”]) our Lord becomes τετελειωμένη [“made perfect”], so in virtue of the same the Lord’s love also was perfected (τελειωθεὶς ἐγένετο [“be made perfect”], Heb 5:9). As He in Gethsemane subordinated all His own thinking, feeling, and willing to that of the Father, as thereby His μένεινἐν τῷ Θεῷ [“abide in God”] had reached its highest degree, thereby was His own love and His work of love brought to perfection; thus was the ἀγάπη εἰςτέλος [“love to the end”], which was at the same time the τετελειωμένηἀγάπη [“love made perfect”], conquered and won by Him. Thus the apostle’s train of thought in our passage is this: If we have perfect fellowship with God (ἐντούτῳ [“by this”]), then have we already upon earth become like, or conformed to, the being and nature of Christ; and when the day of judgment, that is, the day of His manifestation (1Jn 2:28), comes, we shall on the ground of this conformity freely and openly look Him in the face (παῤῥησίαν ἔχομεν [“we have boldness”]). Fellowship with God is at the same time the perfected indwelling of the divine love in us; both these, however, make us like Christ; according to this conformity to Him shall we be finally judged; and if we have it, we have also confidence at the last day.
Let it be further observed how affectingly our verse, thus understood, concurs and coincides with 1Jn 3:1-4. There it was said that full and entire conformity to Christ, which we saw to be comprehended in the idea of brotherhood, lay before us still as the issue of the judgment; but that in order to attain it (1Jn 3:3) we must have attained even here another kind of likeness or equality to Him—we must have become ἁγνοί [“pure”] like Him. Then the following exposition showed that this ἁγνεία [“purity”] consists in righteousness and love, which on their part also again depended on the infusion of the Divine Spirit. Comprehending all in one, we must abide in God and He in us. Now the apostle returns back to the beginning: this fellowship with God, this perfected love in us, is the likeness to Christ above indicated as necessary in the judgment; in virtue of it we pass through the terrors of the judgment unappalled, and then press onward to that higher thing, the καλὸς βαθμός [“good degree”] of perfect equality with Christ. In the ἀγάπητετελειωμένη [“love made perfect”] we have attained all that we may hope to attain ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ τούτῳ [“in this world”]; if, then, we have entered through the ἡμέρατῆςκρίσεως [“day of judgement”] into the αἰὼνμέλλων [“age to come”], the further development will not be found in arrear: φανερωθήσεταιτίἐσόμεθα [“it will be made manifest what we will be ”].