(5) THE GLORIOUS RESULTS OF GOD’S LOVE REALISED THROUGH THE SONSHIP (1 John 2:19-24).
(a)
The comfort of assurance (1 John 2:19-21).
(b)
The grant of our requests (1 John 2:22).
(c)
The presence of God (1 John 2:23).
(d)
The gift of the Spirit (1 John 2:24).
The style of St. John is so much the opposite of rhetorical, that the transitions are very gradual, and the paragraphs melt one into another. Here the reality and sincerity of the brotherly love which he has been urging reminds him of one happy consequence of it: that it convinces us of the truth of our profession and of the deep security of our relation to God. If we love as God loves, then our hearts need not fear. This immediately suggests, by way of contrast, the wholesome thought that, if our heart does condemn us, we ought very seriously to repent, because God is a far more accurate and searching judge. Moving on, however, from the idea of confidence, St. John next dwells on the happy consequence of keeping God’s commandments and doing what is pleasing in His sight, as we can do when we are really His sons: and that is, the certainty that, in one way or another, according to His will, all our prayers will be answered. Then, lest there should be any mistake about the nature of God’s commandments, he puts them in their simplest form: belief in the revealer of His will for theory, brotherly love for practice. This brings forward another result of being enabled to keep His commandments: the presence of God in the Christian, and the life of the Christian in God. Lastly, if we ask how we are to be sure of this presence, we are led to what may be regarded as the fourth consequence of sonship: the demonstrable transformation of all our aims and thoughts by the silent working of the Divine Spirit. Thus, although St. John did not set out intending to lay down these four results, they stand out evident from the rest of the train of thought.
(5 a.) (19) Hereby refers to what precedes in 1 John 2:18. “And” is best omitted. For “we know” read shall we know.
Are of the truth. — That we have our foundation in, and draw our life from, the truth — that we belong to its kingdom. “The truth” means all of the eternal nature, purpose, and will of God which it concerns us to know — revealed in Christ, brought home by the Spirit, exemplified in Christian lives. “The heart” means the affections (comp. John 14:1; John 14:27; John 16:6; John 16:22); the seat of the moral feelings, as distinct from the intellect; the emotional side of the moral nature, of which the intellectual side was called by St. Paul “the conscience.” (Comp. Acts 24:16; Romans 2:15; Romans 9:1; Romans 13:5; 1 Corinthians 8:7; 2 Corinthians 5:11.) The construction here is more disputed than that of any other passage in the Epistle. There are five ways of taking it: —
(1)
Shall assure our hearts before Him; because, if our heart condemn us, it is because God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.
(2)
Shall assure our hearts before Him, whereinsoever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.
(3)
Shall persuade our hearts before Him that, if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.
(4)
Shall assure our hearts before him; for, if our heart condemn us, God, since He is greater than our heart, knows all things.
(5)
As in the text.
The fifth makes the best sense, and is far more like St. John’s usual style, with the statement, the contrast, and the statement repeated in a stronger form; but it is obliged to consider one of the words — the second “that” or the second “because,” as in (1) — a redundant repetition. The bias of the reader will probably be turned to one or other of these renderings, according as he holds “greater” to mean “more searching” or “more merciful.” The former is necessary if we consider 1 John 2:20 a contrast, after the manner of St. John.
(5 b.) The grant of requests the second result of this near relation to God (1 John 2:22-23).
(22) Whatsoever we ask. — If this sounds unlimited, we should remember that it is said of us in our character as children of God; as far as that is true of us, we cannot ask anything contrary to His will. (Comp. John 16:23-24.) Our prayers are heard through the merits of Christ; but if we do not keen the commands of God, if (still more positively) we make no attempt to do what is pleasing in his sight, prayer must be fruitless. The fact is that, unless there is such a moral result in ourselves, our faith has not laid hold of Christ’s merits, is dead, and is no true faith at all.
(23) And this... — The sum of God’s commandments, and the compendium of the life that pleases Him, is stated shortly in two spiritual facts indissolubly connected — (a) belief on the Name; (b) brotherly love. Belief is the root of the matter, because the recognition of Jesus as Messiah is the essential foundation of the Christian fellowship. (Comp. Galatians 5:6-14; and 1 Timothy 1:5.)
(5 100) The mutual indwelling of the Father and His redeemed sons the third result of the Adoption. (Comp 1 John 1:3; 1 John 2:6; 1 John 2:24; 1 John 2:28; 1 John 4:13.) St. John is not thinking specially of any Person of the Deity.
(5 d.) The solid proof of the indwelling, and therefore the Sonship, is the demonstrable presence of the Spirit (end of 1 John 2:24).
Hitherto the thoughts have been chiefly about the Father and the Son where any direct reference was made to Persons in the Trinity. Here the Divine Spirit comes into prominence; formerly He had only been alluded to in the anointing (1 John 2:20; 1 John 2:26; comp. Romans 8:15; Romans 15:19; 1 Corinthians 2:4; Galatians 4:6 1 Thessalonians 1:5).
The mention of faith in 1 John 2:23 suggests to St. John the necessity of a still further discussion of truth and error, lest it should be thought that all religious fervour is of the truth. The mention of the Spirit enables him to make the transition distinctly, and he treats of the various phases of religious life, true and false, under the corresponding name of spirits.