1 John 5

1. WHOSOEVER believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth 2 him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. By this we know that we love the 3 children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of 4 God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh 5 the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth 6 that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, 7 because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the 8 Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear wit- 9 ness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of 10 God which he hath testified of his Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth 11 not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to 12 us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. 13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of 14 God. And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according 15 to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know 16 that we have the petitions that we desired of him. If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto 17 death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteous- 18 ness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death. We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth 19 him not. And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. 20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. 21 This is the true God, and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.

FAITH—that is to say, in all possible spheres the vision of the invisible and the absent brought nigh—is the energy of the soul and the energy of life. We do not go too far in saying that it is the point of departure for all action, since to act is to quit the firm position of the present and stretch the hand into the future. But this at least is certain, that faith is the source of everything in the eyes of man which bears a character of dignity and force. Vulgar souls wish to see, to touch, to grasp; others have the eye of faith, and they are great. It is always by having faith in others, in themselves, in duty, or in the Divinity, that men have done great things. Faith has been, in all time, the strength of the feeble and the salvation of the miserable. And Christian faith is the victory over the world, since it contains all the elements of a holy life. A. V.—We are not only final, but present, conquerors. Each hour is a battle, and each battle a victory; our life is not merely a series of battles, but a series of victories—all ending in one complete and glorious triumph, to be rewarded by a crown and a throne! The overcoming principle in this war is “the whatsoever is born of God.” However small at first and feeble it may be, if it be born of God it is enough. With that we are safe, for it can not be extinguished by either earth or hell. Storms may quench the lights of man’s kindling, but they can not touch the stars. So, whatever is of man, or of earth, or of self, may and shall perish amid the rough blasts of this world; but that which is of God shall survive and gather fresh vitality and power from what seeks to destroy it. Bonar.

3. When the sun of prosperity shines out warm and bright upon us; when we are in a state of robust health, and have a flow of animal spirits; when our friends are around us, our homes happy, our means abundant for our needs, and there is no call for pinching, or saving, or straitening; when, moreover, our reputation is good, and we are looked up to in the little circle in which we move—nothing is easier, under these circumstances, than to feel an occasional glow of gratitude to the Giver of all these blessings, and to mistake that for the love which is the fulfilling of the first and great commandment. E. M. G.—Love is a beautiful plant with a beautiful flower of which duty is the stalk. “This is the love of God,” says the apostle of love, “that we keep his commandments.” The devotion to God and to God’s service, which will gradually grow to greater and greater strength and ripeness in the heart of any Christian, includes most assuredly a certain bent and direction of the feelings and impulses, but it is not itself made up of them and of them alone. It includes also something deeper than all feelings and steadier than all impulses. The love that would reach its true perfection must make the sense of duty stronger, and deeper, and keener, and the obedience more careful and more inflexible. F. T.

“His commandments are not grievous,” can not be, coming from such a source, for they come from the kindest and most loving of Fathers; are not in their nature, for they enjoin only love and good will, which, the heart being right, are of all things most delightful; are not therefore in the conscious experience of the obedient, for they find all true obedience supremely joyous. The service of love is a perpetual charm to the loving heart. H. C.

4. Our faith is our spiritual, our Christian power. In the Scriptures it is continually exhibited under this character of power; its deficiency, therefore, is our spiritual weakness. It is that by which, according as it is great or small, we may turn all things to our highest advantage, or carry on but a profitless commerce; by which we may “overcome the world,” or hardly be sure that we are not its slaves; by which we may do much for God, or but bring him such a tribute as we should be utterly ashamed to think of offering to him. J. F.—There is nothing which faith does not overcome; nothing which it will not accept. Faith passes beyond all earthly things, pierces all shadows, to attain the truth; keeps it ever in a firm embrace, and will never let herself be separated from it. The simplicity and elevation which faith gives to the soul make it satisfied with everything. Nothing is wanting to it; nothing is too much for it; and at all times it blesses the divine hand which causes the waters of grace to flow so gently upon it. An.—The sound and steadfast belief of eternal things is requisite to direct our choice aright. Faith assures us of their reality and worth, as if they were before our eyes and in our actual possession. This divine light governs and conducts the will to choose wisely. When the devil, the deadly flatterer, by inviting representations of the world, entices the heart, the serious belief of the future reward, so glorious and eternal, disgraces the most splendid temptations and makes them ineffectual. “This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.” Bates.

5. To throw ourselves on his promises; to purify ourselves in the full assurance that Christ’s love can carry us through all that we shall encounter; to cling to Christ not only in spite of pain and darkness and strange perplexity, but in spite of our sins also—this is Christian faith. This is the power which, both in great things and in small, both in hard trials and in easy, ever supports the disciple of Christ by bringing within his reach all the strength of his Master. And this faith which, resting on the certainty of Christ’s help and striving to hold fast his Spirit, lives in us throughout our daily life, and secretly influences our works and deeds and thoughts, will gradually build up within the soul a temple to the Lord, not of hay, wood, stubble, but of gold, silver, precious stones, a calm, firm, pure character, knit to our Redeemer by the hidden bonds of a Christian purpose, at peace with God, and master of itself. F. T.

6. Who is he, and what is the mysterious power of his coming which makes him the Giver of eternal life to those that believe, in all lands and ages of the world? “It is he that came by water and blood; not by water only, but by water and blood.” One great part of the power of Christ among men is the cleansing away of moral corruptions. Stains on the lips, the hands, the habits; worst of all, stains on the sacred temple walls of the soul itself—these all have to be washed away, first by one true repentance and regeneration, having water for their sacramental sign, and then, afterward, by the repeated washings of Christ’s truth and Spirit, applied faithfully to all the departments of our action. Christ came to cleanse his followers from all unrighteousness. He “came by water.” . . . “Not by water only, but by water and blood.” The daily sacrifice of four thousand preparatory years had pre-signified it to a waiting world. From the outset of his personal ministry, as it had been from the foundation of the world, the Saviour was pointing to the sacrifice, journeying always toward Calvary. Other prophets and reformers had come “by water,” preaching purification for the future. He alone came “by blood,” giving, in himself, atonement for past and future both. F. D. H.

The conclusion of the Epistle begins with verse 6. It is in two portions (vs. 6-12 and vs. 13-21). Both of these serve to bring the subject of the whole to its full completion, and, so to speak, to set it at rest. “Jesus is the Son of God.” This is the sum and substance of the apostolic testimony and exhortation. In the opening of the Epistle it was rested on the testimony of eye- and ear-witnesses; now it is rested on witness no less secure, viz., on the religious life and experience of the readers themselves. Between these two testimonies comes in the Epistle itself with all its teaching, exhortation, and warning. This last testimony that Jesus is the Son of God is threefold: the water of baptism, the blood of reconciliation, the Spirit of sanctification (vs. 6-8). These, in threefold unity, form God’s own witness for his Son (v. 9). Only in faith on the Son of God (v. 10) do we receive and possess this witness of God, the true substance of which is eternal life, bestowed on us in Christ through water, blood, and the Spirit. So that he that hath the Son hath life. A.

In this Epistle it seems quite manifest that the signature of the threefold God is not merely wrought into spots and corners of the texture, but broadly impressed upon the whole web. In thus making this threefold distinction the basis of his whole scheme of instruction, John has taught not only its absolute truth, but its relative importance. Learning from him “the proportion of the faith,” we will safely value that most which he thought most precious. If, under those brief but wondrous words—Father, Son, and Spirit—he was accustomed to classify all the bright treasures of his inspiration; if into this mold every narrative, every exhortation naturally flowed; if he was wont to see, in the adoration that bowed before this mysterious Triad of eternal powers, the last and loftiest act of religion, the sum and abstract of all the rest, we can not be wrong in preserving the equilibrium that he has fixed. And if, too, to him this great belief was more than belief, this “light” was also “life”; if he could feel it blessed to acknowledge a Father who is our Father, a Son in whom we also “are called the sons of God,” a Holy Spirit who “dwell-eth with us, and shall be in us”; may we also find in the Trinity the ground of practical devotion, pure and deep, till, quickened by the power of this faith, the Three that bear record in heaven shall bear their witness in our hearts; and the Trinity shall have become, not the cold conclusion of the intellect, but the priceless treasure of the affections, the blessed foundation and the perpetual strength of the new and spiritual life! W. A. B.

Verse 7 is perhaps the most celebrated case of interpolation in the whole New Testament. The words, “in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth,” are wanting in of Greek manuscripts whatever previous to the sixteenth century, when a Greek manuscript containing them was apparently forged in answer to a challenge from Erasmus; no Greek father whatever takes any notice of them in expounding the passage; the ancient Syriac version does not contain them; the Latin fathers were long supposed to quote them, but hardly an imagined example of this situation in their works will bear strict examination. There is not the shadow of a reason for supposing the words genuine. A.

8-10. This witness is threefold: by the Spirit, the water, and the blood. It is an external and historical witness. It also becomes an internal and experimental evidence to believers. “He that believes on the Son of God, has the witness in himself,” i. e., the triple witness of the Spirit clarifying the mind, the water cleansing the heart, and the blood purging the conscience, so that there is obtained an inwrought certainty of the divine Sonship of Jesus Christ, which no surface objection or suggested doubt can shake. We are reminded of a fine stroke of Runyan, in his allegory of the “Holy War,” when he names “Captain Experience” among the chief officers who routed and slew the army of ten thousand Doubters that came against the city of Mansoul. There is nothing so impervious to doubts as a sound, personal experience of Christ’s saving power and love. D. F.

10. We trust not to our good frames, or warm feelings, or sensible comforts, or to any of the genuine fruits and effects of faith, but we trust what God says simply, as his record; and, therefore, we walk in a constant dependence of the truth of God in his word, and upon the faithfulness of God to his word. True faith has no foundation but the word of God; nothing to rest on but the divine truth, no support but the divine power, and no growth but from the divine influence. Romeine.

11. Christ founded on earth a kingdom within which is to be found a life that is not to be found beyond its limits; a kingdom which is not “in words but in power”—that is to say, is not produced by any words or ideas alone, however true or however beautiful, but by a power, a vital force peculiar to itself; and that this force is the indwelling life of Jesus Christ—God and Man. Christianity is not a code of morals merely, nor a philosophy, nor a creed, nor a system of religious discipline; but over and above all those it is a life, a new and real vital force in the world; a life with its own conditions of existence, laws of development, and peculiar phenomena, as real and as distinct as those of any other form of life which science investigates and classifies; and this life is in Christ; for “this is our record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” Magee.—Eternal life is the life which God himself lives, and has lived from all eternity, and in which he has his blessedness; whose thought is truth, and its force life, and its nature love. As truth it contains and declares the essence and substance and relation of all things; as light it makes manifest by the very force and acting of its nature; as love it finds its joy and satisfaction, even at the cost of infinite sacrifice, in going out of itself for the sake of others. A. W. T.

12. He that hath the Son hath life. He doth not say, he shall have life at some distant period, but he hath it already in present possession. How much they mistake the gospel constitution, who represent eternal life as a distant reward, suspended upon the performance of certain conditions on the part of the creature; whereas salvation through Christ, though perfected in heaven, is a present salvation. R. W.—13. “Ye may know that ye have eternal life.” Our knowledge of Jesus, or of grace, is not according to our feeling, but according to the testimony which God has given of his Son. When we come to Jesus, we receive him at once, as he is, in all his fullness, as God hath made him for us; we receive the whole Christ, and are blessed with all spiritual blessings in him. The believer is gradually growing in the knowledge and enjoyment of the blessings he has received; but the possession of them is not a gradual acquisition, but an immediate and perfect reception. The word of God declares that, believing in Jesus, I have eternal life. This is far beyond my conception, experience, and feeling; yet I believe and rejoice in this wonderful gift of eternal life. A. S.

14. “If we ask according to his will, he heareth us.” Outward diversions may break the reverential intimacy of our communion with him; the chill of worldliness may cool the pulse of fervent desire; but if the will yet moves needle-like to the one blessed point, the holy will of Jesus, and rests there, the deepest condition of prevailing prayer is realized. A. J. G.—15. He who prays in the name of Christ is moved and guided by the Spirit of Christ in prayer. He can ask for nothing but that which is in accordance with the will of God; can with assurance ask only that which the Spirit of Christ makes known to him in prayer as corresponding to the Father’s will. When this certainty is wanting, his prayer will always be accompanied with the condition that the desire arising in his soul and taking the form of prayer may have for its object something which the Father approves. N.—If ever we have a request refused, it is because it does not agree with the one fundamental, all-important prayer: “If it be good!” Yet this master-prayer, even when not expressed, is always implied, in every prayer offered up in the name of Jesus; and God’s answer always brings out into prominence this main request, while, at the same time, he forgives the folly which caused us ourselves to cover over this “If it be good!” Besser.

16. In order that no convinced sinner may despair of mercy, there is no sin that ever was or can be committed (the sin against the Holy Ghost excepted, which none have committed who are willing to be saved in the gospel way) which some that are now in glory have not been guilty of. Nay, more, there is perhaps not a sin which can be thought of that some of God’s eminent Scripture saints have not fallen into after their conversion, though, through grace, they have been enabled to renew the actings of their faith and repentance, and are now singing before the throne “unto him that hath loved and redeemed them, and that hath washed them from their sins in his own blood.” Hill.

19. The whole world lieth in the wicked one; is entangled in the coils, and bitten by the fangs, and tortured by the venom of the old serpent—the devil. Think upon the passions which predominate in human affairs; think of the vile affections which, like furies, tyrannize over the minds of men: wrath, malice, revenge, envy, pride, suspicions, selfishness, cruelty, slander—these are the oligarchy of diabolical tempers, which usurp the dominion of the world in the name of Satan, and which, with something of his power and of his fury, torment the miserable children of men. How much of the most sanguinary warfare, the most remorseless oppression, the most deadly revenge, the most operative mischief, the most crafty subtilty, the most insulting pride, is perpetually at work in the destruction of human happiness. J. A. J.

20. We are in him. Believers are in Christ, so as to be partakers in all that he does, and has, and is. They died with him, and rose with him, and live with him, and in him are seated in heavenly places. When the eye of God looks on them, they are found in Christ, and there is no condemnation to those that are in him, and they are righteous in his righteousness, and loved with the love which rests on him, and are sons of God in his sonship, and heirs with him of his inheritance, and are soon to be glorified with him in his glory. And this standing which they have in Christ, and the present and future portion which it secures, are contemplated in eternal counsels, and predestined before the foundation of the world. As the sense of this fact breathes in every page, so also does the sense of the correlative fact, that Christ is in those who believe; associating his own presence with their whole inward and outward life. They live, yet not they, but Christ liveth in them, and he is their strength and their song. T. D. B.

21. A strange but fitting conclusion to the Epistle. No farewell salutations to particular persons, as at the close of other Epistles; no blessing even uttered on the whole Church. The tenderness of love only manifests itself in that cordial “little children” with which this father in Christ winds up his address; but all yields to the earnestness with which he would impress upon their hearts the exhortation which he must have esteemed his last, his very last word to them: “Keep yourselves from idols.” It is no less than an earnest warning against everything which, either in theory or in practice, would take the place in the Christian life of “the true God and eternal life.” Van O.