Ch. 4:1-6. The Duty and Method of Testing those who come to us Claiming TO have the Holy Spirit.

This is the occasion of bringing to view once more (see 2:18) the false teachers, or antichrists. The apostle severely exposes them, and utters a sharp warning against them. We discover some reason why John should be called Boanerges.

1. Beloved. Set off against the enemies and errorists. See explanation under 3:2. All who appreciate the new nature love them. Possibly we are too reserved in applying this name. Believe not every spirit. Here John refers to the spirits of men, considered as having religious capacity, and under the influence of the Spirit of God or the spirit of antichrist. At the close of the preceding chapter one might say:" But shall I take the word of every man who says he has the Spirit? Is a man's saying he has the Spirit enough for me? May I receive him on this?" "No," says John, "it is your bounden duty, and I command you not to believe every spirit, but to test every one thoroughly. Use reasonable tests to find out whether the spirit of him who comes to you with his religious claims has been truly imbued with God's Spirit, or is under some other influence." The command suggests that we should carefully examine and prove all who apply for a place in Christ's Church, as well as those who assume to be Christian teachers. By implication it forbids building up the Church with an unconverted membership or recognizing an unregenerate ministry. We may mistake, but we are bound to use all reasonable means to discriminate. Of God. Allied to him in spiritual nature. Because. Reason making the trial necessary and urgent. One might ask: "Have any claimed to have the Holy Spirit, who are false in that claim?" "Yes," says the apostle; "and not a few, but many." The many false prophets are the same as the many antichrists of 2:18. A prophet is one who speaks for another. The false prophet professes to speak for God and under his inspiration, as the antichrist falsely claims to be on the side of Christ and to represent his teaching. Are gone out. From the ranks of Christian profession (2:19), and are now abroad spreading their errors in the world.

2. Hereby — or, in the operation of the test about to be stated. Know ye (or, ye know). The moment the test is named. With Alford, against almost all, we prefer the indicative to the imperative. It is more in John's confidential manner, and sounds more like the occasional in this we know. The Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit (of 3:24) identifying himself with the human spirit to which he is given; the Holy Spirit working in men's spirits. This is the common view; probably the better view. Yet the spirit, whichever one it is, that belongs to God, may be meant. Every spirit that confesseth. Not merely once, but right on. The confession is something uttered before men. Unexpressed confession is a contradiction of terms, and a thing impossible. As Lange suggests, the very word means the oral confession of a truth or reality. Such confession is one of the fixed laws of the new life. There is no heavenly promise for him who is unwilling to confess Christ before men. The Bible does not own such an one as having salvation. (Rom. 10:9, 10.) That Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. The matter of the confession is not the mere name of Christ, which even the errorists confessed; but it is Christ in his genuine nature and office, having a particular history, and embodying a particular system of truth. It is that he is Jesus, and therefore the Saviour of a people. It is that he is Christ, and therefore the Anointed of God. It is that this Christ Jesus has come from God in the flesh, in a real, not a seeming humanity, with the soul and body of human nature. When John wrote, men were beginning to teach that Christ only appeared to have a human nature, as the angels who came to Lot and Manoah; and, being astray on the incarnation of Christ, they were necessarily at fault as to his priestly work and his saving power. It was but the divergence of a step, some might say, but it really involved a denial of the gospel salvation by the God-man, Christ, and his real death; and a person could not deny that essential scheme of salvation and be saved by it at the same time. This is a fearful warning to such as are not docile enough to receive the nature and work of Christ as they are; who wish to explain this or that away, who diverge by a little, as it seems from the total faith. In particular, we must believe aright concerning Christ. Gospel truth is of a definite type, which the regenerate will not miss. The spiritual mind will take to it as naturally as the bird to the air or the bee to its clover. It does make a difference what a man believes. Is of God. Is allied to him in spiritual nature through regeneration.

3. That confesseth not Jesus. 'The Jesus ' (τὸν Ἰησοῦν) that is set forth, and as he is set forth, in the foregoing verse; and hence omitting the words, Christ is come in the flesh, here given by the Common Version, but rejected by the critical text. The subjective negative (μὴ) before the word 'confesseth ' suggests a wilful refusal. The Douay Version (Roman Catholic) renders this part of the verse, "that dissolveth Jesus" (!), without the support of any present manuscript. Suppose the one refusing to confess Jesus and his true oflBce and nature, should be sincere, that does not alter the cardinal fact of his standing; he is not of (ἐκ) God. And (moreover) this (spirit not confessing Christ in his true nature) is that spirit of antichrist (literally, the antichrist) whereof ye have heard that it should come (literally, cometh). This is the spirit answering to, and identified with, the spirit of antichrist. The Christian professor who has this spirit is an antichrist. See full explanation of the word 'cometh,' and especially of 'antichrist,' under 2:18. Let it be recalled and emphasized, that an antichrist is not one who denies Christ outright; but one who, claiming to receive him, attributes to him such a nature, work, or doctrine as really makes another Christ of him. The name may be given to one so doing, or to the common spirit pervading all who do this. Along all the gospel age, this "man of sin" (2 Thess. 2:8) has his types, men who, claiming the Christian name, are perverting the fundamental doctrine it represents.

4. Ye (emphatic) are of God, little children, and have overcome them. 'Little children ' (note on 2:1) were they; not boastful, not overbearing, not conceited, not originators of a religious philosophy of their own, not in haste to say what God ought to do and Christ ought to be; but men and women of the child-spirit, willing to receive Christ as he is, his word as he gave it, willing to confess the Lord Jesus in all his nature, work, truth; trusting, docile, obedient; such they were, and as such were of God, born of him, belonging to him, having his Spirit; tried by the tests, and not found wanting. And they had 'overcome' (Johannean word) those who had made other confession and were of a different spirit. They were not caught with their delusions, nor led into their snares. In all their contests with them they had triumphed, and should triumph. The shout of a king was among them. The errorists might be more eloquent, higher up in the social scale, more learned, but the little ones having the truth were the conquering people. Because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. The reason of the prevalence of spiritual men is not in themselves. They need not take personal credit. The one in them, in union with their hearts, is God; naturally suggested by the previous clause, and by the relation of terms in 3:10. The one 'in the world,' in union with the men of the world, is the devil. (John 14:30; 2 Cor. 4:4; Eph. 2:2.) The world is a more general term than antichrist. All outside of God's light and life are of the world; while antichrist includes those who profess Christ but make him another Christ. But the latter belong also to the wider class of the world, as John's reasoning assumes; and if so, he that is in the world is in them. And God is stronger than he. Which the overcoming side is, therefore, cannot be doubtful.

5. They are of (ἐκ) the world. Of one nature with it. What the preceding words had implied as to the belonging of the false teachers is now expressly stated. They may be enrolled in some church bearing the Christian name; they may profess to be the only consistent expounders of Christianity; they may claim the Spirit divine; but in truth they are of the world, wholly under worldly motives, still unconverted, still in their sins. They may have a strong religiousness, but not the Spirit of God. Therefore speak they of (ἐκ) the world. Their doctrine necessarily partakes of the worldly nature within them and about them. They teach a system congenial to worldly men. And the world heareth them. "Adopts readily their teaching so accordant with its own spirit." (Hackett.) The world loves its own. See John 8:47; 15:19; 17:14. How much in the circle of his Master's teaching and very words is John. Wonderful receptivity!

6. We (emphatic) are of (ἐκ) God. Allied to him in spiritual nature through the new birth; in contrast with the antichrists. And so in sympathy with God's doctrine, and speaking it. By ' we ' John means especially himself and the true teachers, not excluding, however, any of the spiritual party. The Church speaks doctrine through its teachers. He that knoweth God heareth us. Experimental knowledge, knowledge that receives its object. The hearing is more than that of the ear; it is willing adoption of the teaching, as being consonant with the heart's knowledge of God. ' The heart and the doctrine are in one sphere. He that is not of God, heareth not us. For the reason just suggested. It is not the spiritual mind (John 10:8), but the unspiritual, that goes after the errorists, that prefers human philosophy to the true word. Hereby know we. That is, from the criteria just mentioned. What one most readily hears, shows what spirit he is of, to what nature or sphere he belongs. The knowledge is that of quality, hence the knowledge of discrimination. The Spirit of truth, and the spirit of error. As they are in men. The Spirit of truth is the Holy Spirit (John 14:17) in his relation to truth. The spirit of error is the devil in his fontal relation to all false doctrine. He who welcomes Christ's doctrines has the Spirit who gives them. He whose soul takes naturally to false doctrine is in affinity with the arch seducer, liar, and wanderer. The closing words of the section look back to the opening words.

7-13. Christian Love Enjoined in New Connections. It is the Evidence that WE ARE Born of God, that we Know God, THAT WE Appreciate God's Love to us, AND that God is Dwelling in us.

John resumes the great theme of brotherly love with which he closed the last chapter; "but this time in nearer and deeper connection with our birth from God, and knowledge of him who is himself love." (Alford.) Having just spoken of signs of the presence of the Spirit; he is led again to that great demonstration of the new life afforded in the exercise of love. Love, he maintains is not only a duty, but belongs to the very nature of our divine kinship through regeneration; and hence, if wanting, our divine life is without reality.

7. Beloved. See notes on 3:2; 4:1. Let us love one another. See note on 3:18. How much John dwells on this grace! How large a part of Christianity it is to him! Along with faith, with which it is organically one. it is paramount, (3:23.) Faith unites to Christ; and love, to each other. New convictions of the importance and indispensableness of brotherly love come with the study of this Epistle. More plainly we see that he who has it not is not a Christian, however correct he may be in other respects. A new heart will not be persistently hard toward a brother. That is a fixed point. To carry hatred and spite into the fellowship of Christ's Church, is to carry in the spirit of Cain and the devil. It is to take a piece of hell into heaven. "What this love is, as distinguished from general benevolence and neighborliness, has been fully stated. It is the family affection of God's house, as peculiar, as exclusive, as a mother's love for her own child. Did not Jesus love John otherwise than he did Herod and Caiaphas? This love of spiritual kinship, like the gift of the Spirit, distinguishes Christianity generically from all other religions. It takes it from their category. Let it be added that it is a grace which we are called to exercise, not toward perfect or agreeable Christians only, but toward very imperfect and not wholly congenial Christians; for many such there are. "We must exercise a love that, going through the imperfections of a brother, loves him for Christ's sake, even at the cost of self-denial. If Christ loved us, as some Christians bestow their love — namely, on a principle of loving only agreeable Christians, where might we stand? For love is of God. Of one nature with him. Not natural love, which all men have, but Christian love. It is not anything we have by nature; does not spring out of natural relationships; is not born of the flesh; does not belong to the plane of earthly loves; is not, as some have said, natural love directed to new objects; but is a heavenly principle, created in us out of the very nature of God; in God before it was in us. (Rom. 5:5.) "The appetite for good is from God, the unchangeable good; which appetite is love, of which John saith, 'Love is of God.' Not that its beginning is of us, and its perfecting of God, but that the whole of love is from God." (Augustine.) And every one that loveth is born (or, begotten) of God and knoweth God. Love is the evidence of the new birth and of spiritual knowledge. If one has this divine principle, it proves that he himself has a nature from God and an experience of God. Love is the predicate of the renewed state, and the logical development of spiritual knowledge.

8. He that loveth not, knoweth (or, knew) not God. That is, never knew God at any time; or perhaps when he professed such knowledge. The past tense makes the statement peculiarly significant and strong. For God is love. The expression is one of the deepest in the Bible. Its meaning will ever grow in the mind of the growing Christian, and still be unfathomable. It is said not alone of the loving action of God, not alone of the tender feelings of God, but of the very nature of God. Love is a component of his being, the conscious state of his being. There is no part of his nature that is wanting in this element. It is co-extensive with his life. One, therefore, who in the new birth gets something of Gods nature, must get a portion of the divine love. It is simply impossible to be born from above, without receiving this principle. He, therefore, who does not love, in the Christian sense, is not spiritually related to him, and hence does not know him, and cannot. Or, he that loves not, knows not love; and if he knows not love, he knows not God, for God is love. A close texture of truth. [Compare the statements, "God is a spirit," John 4:24; "God is light," 1 John 1:5, with this "God is love." — A. H.]

9. In this — namely, in sending the Divine Son with the motive of our salvation. Was manifested the love of God toward us. [Rather, in us — ἐν ἡμῖν. — A. H.] That is, at the time of our conversion, by means of the salvation-facts we then became experimentally acquainted with. Thus were manifested the fact, nature, and degree of the love of God. Because that (better, as in Revised Version, that, the fact that; declarative, not causal) God sent (hath sent); sent from himself in heaven, involving the personal pre-existeiice of the One sent. Hath sent forth at a particular moment in the past; but the event is viewed as prolonged in its operation, and in its vital relation to the experience of believers; hence the perfect tense. His only begotten Son "expresses an unique kindredship of nature, and involves a correspondent affection (Ps. 22:20, Septuagint) of him who begat; expresses an eternal relation, not eternal generation." (Hackett.) The term 'only begotten ' (μονογενής) is applied to the only child of earthly parents in three instances by Luke (7:11; 8:«; 9:38), and once in Heb. 11:17. Otherwise it is used in the New Testament only by John, and by him applied to the Son of God. The total expression seems, in our passage at least, to mark a relation of a filial nature held by the Son before he came in the flesh, and making it especially the proof of divine love that he should be sent forth. At the same time, it must be said, that the event of the incarnation is sufficient of itself to justify the full title, or either part of it. All true Christians are, in an important sense, sons of God, having been "begotten again unto a lively hope" (1 Peter 1:3), and having "received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." (Rom.8:15.) "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons (υἰοὶ) of God." (Rom.8:14.) But Christ is not merely a Son of God, he is the Son, having the full nature of God, bearing a unique relation to him in eternity itself, as well as having a unique history in the incarnation. For the Father to give up such a Son for a mission into this world of rebellion and sin was no ordinary test or manifestation of love. Some picture of it would be to send our dearest one into a lazaretto to save the dying, or into a camp of rebels to proffer conditions of peace. That we might live through him. The intention of Christ's mission. An effectual, and not a contingent, purpose, as regards believers. The object of the mission, having reference to our greatest good, impresses us with God's love, as does the self-sacrificing means to effect it. The giving up of the Son, the giving him to come into such a world, and the thoughtful, merciful object of the mission, combine to give the believer an impressive view of the extent and the quality of God's love. The 'living' is the true immortality reached in regeneration and resurrection through the mediation (διὰ) of Christ. The whole verse condenses a volume of truth. It is a remarkable statement of the mission of Christ, and its spring in the eternal love of God. It demonstrates the love-nature asserted in the foregoing verse.

10. Herein is love. In its full nature, so as to be marked and known. This love is not manifested by the fact that we Christians have loved God. That is not extraordinary. But it is by the fact that he loved us back in eternity, without any love in us as the motive; and in the additional fact that, self-moved, he sent his own Son a propitiation in respect to our sins. Compare Rom.  5:8. Loving sinners, so as to redeem them by the work of the atonement, is love. There you see it, and see what it is. On this work of propitiation, see note on 2:1, 2. Through our present passage, the soul of John Milne, as a convicted sinner, was brought into light and peace.

11. Beloved. See on 3:2; 4:1. The term introduces a fervent appeal and faithful admonition. The influence of such a word under such circumstances is obvious. If God so (emphatic) loved us (while we were yet sinners, and so much as to sacrifice his Son for us) we ought also (better, we also ought) to love one another. "We ought surely to love our own brethren, if he loved us sinners; and to love them enough to sacrifice something for them. It is the argument from the greater to the less. The argument of gratitude is implied. Also the argument of the new nature; since where is our likeness to God if we do not love, as he is proved to have done?

12. No man hath seen (beheld) God at any time. Although this opening is apparently abrupt, 3'et the connection of thought between this verse and the preceding is evident and simple: We ought to love one another; and, though we may not see God with the.^e outward eyes, yet if we thus love, God is in us as really as if we saw him. He is where his love is, for love, as a divine principle, is a part of himself. God the Father is the one spoken of, and that beholding of him, which has thus far been denied to mortal man, is of the bodily eyes. Men have seen, with the outward vision, the express image of the Father in Jesus Christ (Heb. 1:3; John 14:9), but not God the Father by himself as he is. (John 1:18.) He whom Adam and Abraham and Moses saw was not the Father, but the Word, the Angel of Jehovah, the veiled higher nature of Christ before he came in the flesh. If we love one another, God dwelleth (or, abideth) in us. God is where his love is, for it is inseparable from himself. It is himself, just as his Spirit is. Love is of God in nature and source, (ver. 7.) Loving one another, in the spiritual sense, is the exercise of God's nature in us. The loving heart contains him; Jehovah-Shammah. And his love (the one divine principle of love whether in him or in us) is perfected in us. Made complete, brought to maturity. This happens when, experiencing God's love in us, we love one another. A tree reaches maturity, fulfills its end, in bearing fruit. The same is true of the plant of divine love in the heart. Brotherly love is God's love fulfilling its end and bearing fruit.

13. Hereby (or, in this) — namely, in the fact that God has given us the Holy Spirit — we know that we dwell (or, abide) in him, and he in us. See 3:24, where the same words are used of our union with Christ, following John 15:4, 5. Here the apostle means our union with God the Father, so easy is the transition in thought or experience from Son to Father, so natural is it to honor the one as the other, so fitted are the divine predicates to the one or the other. If we are united to Christ, we are united to God in Christ. In ver. 12, John had said, if we love, God abides in us; but can this be known? "Yes," says he, "we may know it, we do know it, as true, in the strongest possible statement of it. Our divine union, which our love implies, is a matter of certain knowledge. It is a fact of experience. We know it as much as we know our existence." How do we know it? By what evidence? By this — Because he hath given us of his Spirit. For his presence in us declares the fact; and his voice in us is witness to the fact. The Spirit in our hearts is the seal and assurance of our union with God. It is the very element and life of the union. He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit. The gift of the Spirit carries with it every fact of the new life. It proves all. The root of love in us is God, whose presence the Spirit certifies and reveals.

14-16. The Fact of the Mutual Indwelling OF God and the Christian is Assured to us in the very Terms of Salvation, and in our Knowledge of THE Love OF God in us.

This is additional to the assurance of the Spirit. The actual spiritual connection of God with the soul of the renewed man is something which John would strongly declare and confirm. Our divine union is a first truth with him.

14. And takes up a new and additional line of proof of the living union of God and his people. We. The Christian party, through the apostles. Have seen (or beheld). Have the evidence of our own eyes, accompanied with careful contemplation. See 1:1,2. And do testify (or, bear witness). Continue to do so, as witnessing to the gospel facts is not for once. That the Father. So named here from his relation to Christ, rather than to John. Sent (better, hath sent). In the past, but the influence and effects are still present. See on ver. 9. The Son to be the (better, a) Saviour of the world. 'Saviour' is a distinctive title of the Son, declaring the mission on which he was sent into the world. He was sent to provide, in his own person, salvation for the world, which salvation is availed of and actually applied, through belief and confession. See Rom. 10:9, and our next verse. See notes in full on 2:2. To those who receive him, the Son of God is Saviour from what? From guilt and condemnation, from despair, from a nature of sin, from error, from a body of death, from the world, from Satan, from an eternal hell; requiring a great Saviour, with all his deity and all his humanity, all his blood and all his Spirit.

15. Whosoever shall confess. As a part of the plan by which Christ becomes an effectual Saviour. It is a stipulation under the salvation proclaimed in the preceding verse, which explains the mood and tense. The confession is that from the inmost being, from the whole being, uttered openly and with the mouth. [It seems to me that the aorist subjective is here used in the sense of the Latin future-perfect; thus, "Whoever shall have confessed that Jesus is the Son of God," etc. Yet the translation given by the Revised English Bible, the Bible Union, and by Alford, Noyes, and others, namely:" Whoever confesseth," etc., is sufficiently exact. The Latin Vulgate reads: Quisquis confessus fuerit. Compare Winer, §43. 3. b.; Buttmann, "Grammar of the New Testament Greek," p. 219; and "Proceedings of the Am. Phil. Association for 1877," pp. 22, 23.— A. H.] That Jesus (the man) is (also) the Son of God. This is the matter of the saving confession, or the basal part of it. See on ver. 2. God dwelleth (or, abideth) in him. In that man who thus confesses, whosoever he is, and however great a sinner. A simple statement of fact included under the very provision and terms of salvation by Christ, sealed by apostolic testimony. And he in God. This completes the expression of the perfect living union of God and the regenerate soul.

16. And introduces an additional confirmation of the living union with God, co-ordinate with that in ver. 14, 15. We have known and believed. Another certainty additional to the ' we have seen ' in ver. 14, and in the same tense. That was the certainty of sight; this of experience. The saying that we have both 'known and believed' suggests the intimate relation of spiritual knowledge and belief. They both have as their object things invisible, and doubtless they are commingled in one act of a soul coming into life. "True faith is a faith of knowledge and experience; true knowledge is a knowledge of faith." (Lücke.) Note the order of the verbs. There is a persuasion that comes of experience. The love that God hath to (in) us. Not "in regard to us" (Alford), but literally in us. In the new life we have experienced a new principle of love in our hearts which we have intuitively recognized as something from God, as his love in us, the love he has in us. Now, John, recalling the proposition in ver. 8, says God is love, and hence this love of his in us, which we know and believe, is God himself. And, of course, then, it follows that he that dwelleth (or, abideth) in love (as he does who has God's love in him) dwelleth (or, abideth) in God (emphatic), and God in him. In ver. 12. the point is the fact of our union with God, implied in our love. Here the point is the assurance or confirmation of the fact, derived from our personal experience of love.

17-21. Further Comments on Spiritual Love: (1) In Perfection, it takes away Fear; (2) Its Exercise toward God Accounted for; (3) Love to God Implies Love to Our Brother.

17. Herein. In the personal experience of love, and especially of the union with God which it implies, just spoken of; expressing the manner or means of love's perfection with us. Or, in this interest, with this intention — namely, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; expressing the end or purpose of love's perfection with us. Either explanation is worthy; the former possibly having the preference. Other constructions seem improbable. Is our love made perfect. The Revised Version is correct: Is love made perfect with us (μεθ̓ἡμῶν). (Love has been perfected, matured, fulfilled, not in itself, but with us, in the conscious life and fruit-bearing of our souls. That (ἴνα, for this end that) we may have boldness in the day of (the) judgment states a divine end of the perfection of love with us. It is that we may, being full of divine love, and carrying along with us the calm consciousness of being one with God thereby produced, meet the searching judgment of the last day, free from all sense of condemnation and perfect in confidence. In perfected love there is a conscious union with God that makes us bold and confident before the divine Judge himself. See 2:28; 3:19-21. In this union we cannot be condemned any more than God himself. Judgment is coming, but he who is hid in the pavilion of God's nature is as safe and confident as was Noah in the ark. Because as he if so (or, even so) are we in this world expands and states more explicitly the reason, or rather philosophy, of this complete confidence in the judgment day. 'He,' or, that one, is he before whom we shall come in that great day, whether it be God, or, as generally understood, Christ, viewed as possessing the divine nature. The reasoning is. This confidence we shall have at the judgment, because, in the love and union of God with us, we shall bear there a nature already one with that of him who will judge us. As he is, in his spiritual nature, in the other world, so by divine union are we already in this world, and that likeness of nature will insure confidence in the day of judgment. This explanation is quite harmonious with that basis of love and divine indwelling on which the apostle is arguing, and seems almost self-evident. Notwithstanding, we have Ebrard saying, "We contemplate the words in question without any clear conception of their meaning! ''

18. There is no fear in love. In the great divine principle of love, whether in God or in us. In it there is no fear, no servile fear, no fear of condemnation or punishment, no fear that hath the least pain in it. The love in God cannot have any of this. The love in us, one in nature, cannot have any of it. Yet there is a fear, not now in the apostle's thought, which is consistent with spiritual love, and perhaps a part of it. But perfect love casteth out fear. Referring to the presence of divine love in our hearts, and perfected there. In its completeness it fills the soul, and thereby shuts out fear which is in us prior to such love. Two spheres cannot occupy the same place. But how does perfect love in us expel fear? In the experience of it, we feel completely united to God, as it were a part of him. We look out upon the world, upon opposition, upon death, upon judgment itself, from the inclosing being of God, from the canopy, the fortification of his own person. In the consciousness of this union we cannot fear evil, any more than God can fear a part of himself (Rom. 8:1.) Because fear hath torment (better, punishment). For thus we must render this last word (κόασις). Compare the only three other New Testament passages (Matt. 25:46; Acts 4:21; 2 Peter 2:9) where this word, or its root, occurs. It is the punishment of the great day (ver. 17), with which fear is connected, and which it already takes hold upon as if it were a part of itself "Fear, by anticipating punishment, has it even now; bears about a foretaste of it and so partakes of it." (Alford.) There can be nothing of this, nothing of painful apprehension in love, and therefore the statement in the previous part of the verse must be true. The last proposition in the verse is added (δὲ) as an inference or complement of the words ' perfect love casteth out fear,' and is slightly adversative.

19. We (in contrast with those who fear and have condemnation) love him. In the fullest, absolute sense. The word him in the Common Version should be omitted, as it is not found in the critical text. The indicative agrees best with the emphatic ' we.' Because he (God, ver. 10) first loved us. In eternity; and so sent Christ into the world to save us. (Ver. 9.) His love to us preceded our love. It was the cause or reason of ours, which implies in the apostle's thought that it furnished the model or type of ours. Our love is a thing rising from God's love, and so is naturally like it. But God's love went out to men. Ours therefore, to be full and perfect, must (ver. 12) go out to men, even our brethren.

20, If any man say (at any time, aorist), I love God, and hateth [better, hate. The present subjective is used in this case because the hatred is a continuous feeling. — A. H.] his brother. Hating is antithetical to loving. There are no indifferent or neutral moral conditions. In not loving, there is the condition of hating when occasion comes. He is a liar. He not only professes falsely, but denies the very nature of love. Our love is the production (ver. 19) of God's love, of our kind with it. But God's love goes out to us of the brotherhood. Therefore ours must embrace the same company. If it does not, it is not true love from God. For. To make the falsity of the claim still more evident by adducing a principle often illustrated in common life. He that loveth not his brother. It is implied in the question that the brother is of the same nature and family with God (5:1), and hence, like God, is a true object of spiritual love, whether he be seen or unseen. The question also implicitly recognizes the well-known advantage of immediate sight as a means of kindling love for a lovable object. For example, we may love absent Christians, but how is that love enlivened when the social meeting brings them about us. The sight of the eyes moves the heart. (Acts 17:16.) If, then, we do not love the brother whom we see, how can we, though one may claim it, love him of related nature, whom we have not seen? Can any one tell? This is additional to the consideration that it is the nature of divine love to love the brethren as well as God; and if one is loved, the other is by necessity of nature. [It ought perhaps to be noticed that the text approved by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort has, in the clause before the last, "not" (οὐ) instead of ' how ' (πῶς); and we should therefore read, "For he that loveth not his brother cannot love God." The manuscript authority for the common text appears to be inferior to that for the text approved by these editors. — A. H.]

21. And (besides all the rest) this commandment (named in the closing part of the verse) have we from him. That is, from God; it may be through Christ, and remembered by John as coming from his Master's lips. It is not the commandment embraced in the summary of the law (Matt. 22:37-39), as claimed by Alford, for that relates to our neighbor, our fellow men in general; while, as we have shown again, the love-command of Christ relates to the inner circle of regenerate men, our brethren in Christ. That (ἴνα) introduces not only the purport of the commandment, but the end intended to be secured by it. What an enforcement of love to the brethren! The one loving God must love his brother from gratitude (4:11), from the divine pattern and nature of love itself (4:19), from a principle of common sense (4:20), and now (ver. 20) from the strong command which expresses directly God's will in the matter.