1 John 3:1 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The apostle, in the last verse of the preceding chapter, having declared that every one who worketh righteousness is born of God, begins the chapter with an exclamation expressive of his high admiration of the love of God in calling them his children, although they are not acknowledged to be such by the men of the world, because carnal men have no just notion of the character of God. Behold what manner The word ποταπην, thus rendered, signifies both how great, and what kind; of love Love immense, condescending, and kind, compassionate, forgiving, patient, forbearing, sanctifying, comforting, enriching, exalting, and beautifying, the Father Of universal nature, of men and angels, and of our Lord Jesus Christ; hath bestowed on us Fallen and depraved creatures, sinful, guilty, and dying; that we should be called sons, (τεκνα, children,) of God Should be accounted, acknowledged, and treated by him as such; should be brought so near, and rendered so dear to him; should have free access to him, as children to a father, and be taken under his peculiar direction, protection, and care, and constituted his heirs, and joint-heirs with his only-begotten and beloved Son: and all this on the easy condition of turning to him, in repentance, faith, and new obedience. Therefore the world The carnal and worldly part of mankind; knoweth us not Is not acquainted with our true character, our principles and practices, our disposition and behaviour, our present privileges and future expectations; and therefore does not acknowledge us for what we really are, nor esteem and love us, but hates and persecutes us; because it knew him not God's eternal and only-begotten Son, through whom we have received the adoption, but accounted him a sinner, an impostor, and a blasphemer, and crucified him as such. As if he had said, Since the enmity of carnal men against the divine will, and the divine nature, is so great that Christ himself, the image of the invisible God, inhabited by the fulness of the Deity, was unknown and hated when he dwelt in the flesh, it is no wonder that we are hated also in those respects in which we resemble him. Nevertheless.