1 Johnchapter 5
21 verses · John, by tradition · AD 85 to 95 · The general letters
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father also loves those born of Him.
Introduction
John, by tradition, The general letters, 1 John Overview.
John closes the letter here, writing to believers who needed their assurance set down in writing. The chapter gathers the threads of the earlier chapters and ties them together. It speaks the language of a courtroom, where a matter stands on the word of witnesses. It also speaks plainly about prayer, about sin, and about the enemy of God's people. Listen for the word testimony, and for the three things John says believers know. The letter ends with a short warning and no farewell.
Context
- Who
- Believers who needed to know, in writing, that they had eternal life
- What
- Faith that overcomes the world, the three witnesses to the Son, the letter's purpose of assurance, confidence in prayer, and a last warning against idols.
- Where
- Ephesus, where the early church places John in his last years, writing to house churches in the Roman province of Asia.
- When
- About AD 85 to 95 on the traditional dating, late in the apostle John's life.
- Why
- To assure those who believe in the Son that they have eternal life, and to direct their prayers and guard them from idols.
Historical context
Witnesses were the ancient world's method of establishing a fact. Two or three agreeing witnesses settled a case in Jewish law, and John assembles three, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, to close his argument.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The water and the blood point at the two ends of Jesus' ministry: his baptism, where the voice named him, and his death, where the blood was shed. The teaching John opposed said the Christ came at the baptism and left before the cross, which is why he insists Jesus came 'not by water only, but by water and blood.'
Readers of older English Bibles will find extra words at verse 7 about three witnesses in heaven. Those words are not in any early Greek manuscript and entered the tradition late through Latin copies, so most modern Bibles omit or footnote them. Saying so plainly costs the chapter nothing; its case rests on the three earthly witnesses.
The final warning to keep from idols was not a leftover. Ephesus and the towns around it were full of shrines, household gods, and civic festivals, so an idol was not a distant temptation but the thing on the shelf in the next room.
Significance
John states his purpose outright: he wrote so that they may know they have eternal life. Assurance is the deliverable, and after a schism that shook them, it was what they needed most.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The confidence he describes runs through prayer as well, asking anything according to his will and being heard, which handed a small, discouraged network a working line to God that no departed teacher controlled.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Born of God: The Victory That Overcomes the World
1 John 5:1-3
has been born of God: Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father also loves those born of Him. Love of God and of His children prove each other. His commandments are not burdensome, as Jesus called His yoke easy.
1 John 5:1
“All, therefore, are outside of the [Christian] dispensation, who, under pretext of knowledge, understand that Jesus was one, and Christ another, and the Only-begotten another, from whom again is the Word, and that the Saviour is another, whom these disciples of error allege to be a production of those who were made Aeons in a state of degeneracy. Such men are to outward appearance sheep; for they appear to be like us, by what they say in public, repeating the same words as we do; but inwardly they are wolves.”
Irenaeus · written before 202 · Against Heresies Book 3patristic
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
1 John 5:1
“Christ is the "only-begotten Son" by generation; we become begotten sons of God by regeneration and adoption. every one that loveth him that begat--sincerely, not in mere profession (1Jo 4:20). loveth him also that is begotten of him--namely, "his brethren" (1Jo 4:21).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 John 5:1
“The scope and sum of this whole paragraph appears from the conclusion of it, 1 John v, xiii, "These things have I written to you who believe, that ye may know that ye who believe have eternal life." So faith is the first and last point with St. John also.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
By this we know that we love the children of God: Verse 1 said that love for God shows in love for His children. This verse turns the test around. Love for the children is proved genuine when it goes with love for God and obedience to Him.
1 John 5:2
“By this we know that we love the children of God - Our love of God’s followers is a proof that we love God. Our love to God is the cause why we love his children, and our keeping the commandments of God is the proof that we love him.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
1 John 5:2
“Our love to them appears to be sound and genuine when we love them not merely upon any secular account, as because they are rich, or learned, or kind to us, or of our denomination among religious parties; but because they are God's children, his regenerating grace appears in them, his image and superscription are upon them, and so in them God himself is loved.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 John 5:2
"Love to one's brother is prior, according to the order of nature (see on 1Jo 4:20); love to God is so, according to the order of grace (1Jo 5:2). At one time the former is more immediately known, at another time the latter, according as the mind is more engaged in human relations or in what concerns the divine honor" [ESTIUS].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
His commandments are not burdensome: The love of God takes the form of keeping His commandments. John adds that His commandments are light, and verse 4 gives the reason, the new birth that overcomes the world. Jesus called His yoke easy at Matthew 11:30.
1 John 5:3
“For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments - This constitutes true love; this furnishes the evidence of it. And his commandments are not grievous - Greek, “heavy” - βαρεῖαι bareiai; that is, difficult to be borne as a burden. See Mat 11:30. The meaning is, that his laws are not unreasonable; the duties which he requires are not beyond our ability; his government is not oppressive. It is easy to obey God when the heart is right; and those who endeavor in sincerity to keep his commandments do not complain that they are hard.”
1 John 5:4-5
overcomes the world: Victory belongs to the new birth: this is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith, the aorist nikesasa naming a conquest already won. Its power lies in its object, that Jesus is the Son of God. The world of 2:15 to 17 is a beaten enemy.
1 John 5:4
“Is born of God overcometh the world - Conquers whatever it can lay in the way, either to allure or fright the children of God from keeping his commandments. And this is the victory - The grand means of overcoming. Even our faith - Seeing all things are possible to him that believeth.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
3 more voices on this verse
1 John 5:4
“I say that, in the measure that a man has faith in Jesus, he is pure. He that believes that Jesus is the Christ overcomes the world. It is a faith that works by love.”
Smith Wigglesworth · Ever Increasing Faith, Chapter 1: "Have Faith in God" (1924)British Pentecostal
1 John 5:4
“Faith is the cause of victory, the means, the instrument, the spiritual armour and artillery by which we overcome; for, (1.) In and by faith we cleave to Christ, in contempt of, and opposition to, the world. (2.) Faith works in and by love to God and Christ, and so withdraws us from the love of the world.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 John 5:4
“WHAT is this "world" that we have to overcome? Did not God make the world and did He not see "everything that He had made and, behold, it was very good"? Yes, He did. But after sin entered this world, men came under its power and, now, by "the world" is meant all mankind who remain under the power of sin and are enemies of God.”
Charles Spurgeon · written before 1892 · The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2757: “Victorious Faith” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
Who then overcomes the world?: The question has one answer in this letter. The overcomer is the believer who confesses Jesus as the Son of God. Faith conquers by the power of the One it trusts.
1 John 5:5
“Who--"Who" else "but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God:" "the Christ" (1Jo 5:1)? Confirming, by a triumphant question defying all contradiction, as an undeniable fact, 1Jo 5:4, that the victory which overcomes the world is faith.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
1 John 5:5
“He is taught and influenced by the Lord Jesus's death to be mortified and crucified to the world. God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world, Gal. vi. He is begotten by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to the lively hope of a blessed world above, 1 Pet. i.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 John 5:5
“Who is he that overcometh the world - That is superior to all worldly care, desire, fear? Every believer, and none else. The seventh verse (usually so reckoned) is a brief recapitulation of all which has been before advanced concerning the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
Water, Blood, and Spirit: The Witness God Gave
by water and blood: Cerinthus taught that the Christ came on Jesus at the baptism and left before the cross. John answers not by water alone, but by water and blood, the same Jesus Christ at the Jordan and on the cross. The Spirit testifies too.
1 John 5:6
“This is he that came by water and blood - Jesus was attested to be the Son of God and promised Messiah by water, i.e. his baptism, when the Spirit of God came down from heaven upon him, and the voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Jesus Christ came also by blood. He shed his blood for the sins of the world; and this was in accordance with all that the Jewish prophets had written concerning him.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3 more voices on this verse
1 John 5:6
“By the blood God is glorified, his law is honoured, and his vindictive excellences are illustrated and displayed. Whom God hath set forth, or purposed, or proposed, a propitiation through faith in his blood, or a propitiation in or by his blood through faith, to declare his righteousness, that he may be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus, Rom. iii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 John 5:6
“Moreover, how could the Lord, with any justice, if He belonged to another father, have acknowledged the bread to be His body, while He took it from that creation to which we belong, and affirmed the mixed cup to be His blood? And why did He acknowledge Himself to be the Son of man, if He had not gone through that birth which belongs to a human being? How, too, could He forgive us those sins for which we are answerable to our Maker and God?”
Irenaeus · written before 202 · Against Heresies Book IVpatristic
1 John 5:6
“John Baptist came only baptizing with water, and therefore was not the Messiah. Jesus came first to undergo Himself the double baptism of water and blood, and then to baptize us with the Spirit-cleansing, of which water is the sacramental seal, and with His atoning blood, the efficacy of which, once for all shed, is perpetual in the Church; and therefore is the Messiah.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Note on the text · 1 John 5:7-8
The clearest case on this site: the words about the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost entered the Greek New Testament in 1522, out of Latin, and the doctrine of the Trinity never needed them.
The witnesses, and what each reads here
- Every Greek manuscript before roughly the 14th century · 2nd-13th centuryReads only the earthly witnesses: "there are three that bear witness, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one." The heavenly witnesses are absent from all of them, without exception.
- Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus · 4th-5th centuryNone of the great codices contains the passage.
- The early versions, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Slavonic · 2nd-9th centuryNone of them contains it in its early form. The one language family in which it appears is Latin.
- The Greek fathers of the Trinitarian controversies · 4th centuryNever quote it. This is the decisive datum. Through the whole fourth-century struggle over the deity of Christ and the Spirit, through Athanasius, Basil, the two Gregorys, Cyril, through the Council of Nicaea in 325 and the Council of Constantinople in 381, a verse that says in so many words that the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit are one is never once cited. It would have been the single most useful sentence in the Bible for their purpose. They did not use it because they did not have it.
- Latin writers, beginning in Spain and North Africa · 4th century onwardWhere the passage first surfaces. The earliest clear quotation of it as Scripture is in the Liber Apologeticus, a work of the late fourth century associated with Priscillian of Ávila or a follower.
- Latin Vulgate copies · 6th-9th century onwardEarly Vulgate manuscripts, including Codex Fuldensis (AD 546), do not have it in the text of the letter. It spreads through Latin copies gradually and is common in them by the ninth century, a Latin reading working its way inward, not a Greek reading working its way out.
- The handful of Greek manuscripts that do contain it · 14th-16th century, plus later marginal notesFewer than ten, all late, and several of them are Greek-Latin bilinguals or copies where the words are a marginal addition in a later hand rather than part of the original text. In every case the reading looks translated from Latin rather than inherited from Greek.
- The printed Greek New Testament · 1516, 1519, 1522Erasmus omitted the passage from his first two editions because he found it in no Greek copy, and included it in his third edition of 1522 after a Greek manuscript containing it was produced. That manuscript, now numbered 61, the Codex Montfortianus, appears to have been written around that time. The often-repeated story that Erasmus had rashly promised to include the words if a single Greek copy could be found is disputed by scholars in its details, and should not be told as settled fact. The core fact is not in dispute: the passage entered the printed Greek text late, and it came in from Latin.
1 John 5:7-8
three that testify: The King James text adds the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, words absent from every Greek manuscript before the late Middle Ages. The Trinity rests on texts such as Matthew 28:19. Verse 8 names three witnesses.
1 John 5:7
“The Lord says, "I and the Father are one;" and again it is written of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, "And these three are one." And does any one believe that this unity which thus comes from the divine strength and coheres in celestial sacraments, can be divided in the Church, and can be separated by the parting asunder of opposing wills? He who does not hold this unity does not hold God's law, does not hold the faith of the Father and the Son, does not hold life and salvation.”
Cyprian · written before 258 · Treatise 1. On the Unity of the Churchpatristic
3 more voices on this verse
1 John 5:7
“For there are three that bear record in heaven ... - There are three that “witness,” or that “bear witness” - the same Greek word which, in 1Jn 5:8, is rendered “bear witness” - μαρτυροῦντες marturountes. There is no passage of the New Testament which has given rise to so much discussion in regard to its genuineness as this.”
1 John 5:7
“It is alleged that many old Greek manuscripts have it not. We shall not here enter into the controversy. It should seem that the critics are not agreed what manuscripts have it and what not; nor do they sufficiently inform us of the integrity and value of the manuscripts they peruse.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 John 5:7
“A scholium quoted in Matthæi, shows that the words did not arise from fraud; for in the words, in all Greek manuscripts "there are three that bear record," as the Scholiast notices, the word "three" is masculine, because the three things (the Spirit, the water, and the blood) are SYMBOLS OF THE TRINITY.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The water and the blood point to the baptism and the death of Jesus, and the Spirit gives a living witness now. The three agree in one testimony about the Son. Deuteronomy 19:15 settles a matter on the word of two or three witnesses.
1 John 5:8
"This is He that came by water and blood, Jesus Christ: not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that testifieth, because the Spirit is the truth, because there are three that bear witness, the Spirit, the water and the blood, and the three are one."
Leo the Great · written before 461 · LETTERS 28patristic
4 more voices on this verse
1 John 5:8
“The Spirit, and the water, and the blood - This verse is supposed to mean “the Spirit - in the word confirmed by miracles; the water - in baptism, wherein we are dedicated to the Son, (with the Father and the Holy Spirit), typifying his spotless purity, and the inward purifying of our nature; and the blood - represented in the Lord’s Supper, and applied to the consciences of believers: and all these harmoniously agree in the same testimony, that Jesus Christ is the Divine, the complete, the only Savior of the world.” - Mr. Wesley’s notes.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 John 5:8
“Not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God, 1 Pet. iii. 21 . [3.] The third witness is the blood; this he shed, and this was our ransom. This testifies for Jesus Christ, First, In that it sealed up and finished the sacrifices of the Old Testament, Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 John 5:8
“By the baptism then received by Christ, and by His redeeming blood-shedding, and by that which the Spirit of God, whose witness is infallible, has effected, and still effects, by Him, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, unite, as the threefold witness, to verify His divine Messiahship [NEANDER].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 John 5:8
“The testimony of all is given on earth, not in heaven; but they who testify are part on earth, part in heaven. The witnesses who are on earth testify chiefly concerning his abode on earth, though not excluding his state of exaltation: the witnesses who are in heaven testify chiefly concerning his glory at God's right hand, though not excluding his state of humiliation.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
1 John 5:9-10
the testimony of God is greater: The argument runs from the courtroom: Even if we accept human testimony, the testimony of God is greater. The believer has this testimony within him, the inward witness to the outward record. Unbelief has made Him out to be a liar.
1 John 5:9
“If we receive the testimony of men - As we do continually, and must do in a thousand instances. The testimony of God is greater - Of higher authority, and much more worthy to be received; namely, this very testimony which God the Father, together with the Word and the Spirit, hath testified of the Son, as the saviour of the world.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
1 John 5:9
“YOU observe that I have somewhat corrected the translation. The same word is employed in every case in the original, but for the sake of variety of expression the translators have used four different words in our version and so, instead of improving the sense, which, indeed, never can be in the case of the Holy Spirit's writing, they have rather darkened the meaning. Put the word, "witness," or, "testimony," in each case, and you get the true meaning.”
1 John 5:9
“Here is the most excellent abridgment or breviate of the motives to faith in Christ, of the credentials the Saviour brings with him, and of the evidences of our Christianity, that is to be found, I think, in the book of God, upon which single account, even waiving the doctrine of the divine Trinity, the text is worthy of all acceptation.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
has this testimony within him: The believer receives God's testimony and carries it within, by the Spirit's witness. The one who refuses to believe calls God a liar. Unbelief is treated as a charge against God's truthfulness.
1 John 5:10
“He that believeth on the Son of God - This is God’s witness to a truth, the most important and interesting to mankind. God has witnessed that whosoever believeth on his Son shall be saved, and have everlasting life; and shall have the witness of it in himself, the Spirit bearing witness with his spirit that he is a child of God. To know, to feel his sin forgiven, to have the testimony of this in the heart from the Holy Spirit himself, is the privilege of every true believer in Christ.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 John 5:10
“He hath not only the outward evidence that others have, but he hath in his own heart a testimony for Jesus Christ. He can allege what Christ and the truth of Christ have done for his soul and what he has seen and found in him. He has deeply seen his sin, and guilt, and misery, and his abundant need of such a Saviour.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 John 5:11-13
this life is in His Son: The testimony is stated in full: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. The line that follows is stark: whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. Verse 13 states the letter's purpose, assurance of eternal life.
1 John 5:11
“And this is the sum of that testimony, that God hath given us a title to, and the real beginning of, eternal life; and that this is purchased by, and treasured up in, his Son, who has all the springs and the fulness of it in himself, to communicate to his body, the church, first in grace and then in glory.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
3 more voices on this verse
1 John 5:11
“Accordingly, those also who fell asleep received the seal of the Son of God. For before a man bears the name of the Son of God he is dead; but when he receives the seal he lays aside his deadness, and obtains life. The seal, then, is the water: they descend into the water dead, and they arise alive.”
Shepherd of Hermas · written before 160 · Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9patristic
1 John 5:11
“Not only "promised" it. life is in his Son--essentially (Joh 1:4; 14:6); bodily (Col 2:9); operatively (2Ti 1:10) [LANGE in ALFORD]. It is in the second Adam, the Son of God, that this life is secured to us, which, if left to depend on us, we should lose, like the first Adam.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 John 5:11
“He has designed it for us in his eternal purpose. He has prepared all the means that are necessary to bring us to it. He has made it over to us by his covenant and promise.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Whoever has the Son has life: Life is found in a person, so to have the Son is to have life. The line leaves no middle ground between the two groups it names. Jesus said the same at John 3:36.
1 John 5:12
“We believe not the testimony of God in which He testifies to us of His Son. "He that hath not the Son, hath not life." And that man has not the Son, who believes Him to be any other than the Son.”
Tertullian · written before 220 · Against Praxeaspatristic
3 more voices on this verse
1 John 5:12
“It plainly follows, he that hath the Son - Living and reigning in him by faith. Hath this life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not this life - Hath no part or lot therein.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
1 John 5:12
“In the former clause "has" bears the emphasis; in the second, life. To have the Son is to be able to say as the bride, "I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine" [So 6:3]. Faith is the mean whereby the regenerate HAVE Christ as a present possession, and in having Him have life in its germ and reality now, and shall have life in its fully developed manifestation hereafter.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 John 5:12
“He that is united to the Son is united to life. He who hath a title to the Son hath a title to life, to eternal life. Such honour hath the Father put upon the Son: such honour must we put upon him too.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
That You May Know, and Ask With Confidence
I have written these things to you: This verse states why the letter was written. The Gospel was written so that readers might believe (John 20:31), and the letter so that believers might know they have life. Assurance is its aim.
1 John 5:13
“These things have I written unto you - The things in this Epistle respecting the testimony borne to the Lord Jesus. That believe on the name of the Son of God - To believe on his name, is to believe on himself - the word “name” often being used to denote the person. See the notes at Mat 28:19. That ye may know that ye have eternal life - That you may see the evidence that eternal life has been provided, and that you may be able, by self-examination, to determine whether you possess it.”
2 more voices on this verse
1 John 5:13
“They have it in the covenant of the gospel, in the beginning and first-fruits of it within them, and in their Lord and head in heaven. These believers may come to know that they have eternal life, and should be quickened, encouraged, and comforted, in the prospect of it: and they should value the scriptures, which are so much written for their consolation and salvation.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 John 5:13
“JOHN wrote to believers’"These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God." It is worthy of note that all the epistles are so written. They are not letters to everybody, they are letters to those who are called to be saints. It ought to strike some of you with awe when you open the Bible and think how large a part of it is not directed at you. You may read it, and God's Holy Spirit may graciously bless it to you, but it is not directed to you.”
1 John 5:14-15
according to His will: Assurance gives boldness in prayer, the Greek parresia: If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. The condition is agreement with God's will. Verse 15 draws the conclusion, we know that we already possess what we have asked of Him.
1 John 5:14
"And this is the confidence which we have towards Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He will hear us." He does not say absolutely what we shall ask, but what we ought to ask.
Clement of Alexandria · written before 215 · From the Latin Translation of Cassiodoruspatristic
2 more voices on this verse
1 John 5:14
“This is the confidence - Παρῥησια, The liberty of access and speech, that if we ask any thing according to his will, that is, which he has promised in his word. His word is a revelation of his will, in the things which concern the salvation of man. All that God has promised we are justified in expecting; and what he has promised, and we expect, we should pray for. Prayer is the language of the children of God. He who is begotten of God speaks this language. He calls God Abba, Father, in the true spirit of supplication.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 John 5:14
“The matter of our prayer must be agreeable to the declared will of God. It is not fit that we should ask what is contrary either to his majesty and glory or to our own good, who are his and dependent on him. And then we may have confidence that the prayer of faith shall be heard in heaven.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
we know that He hears us: Knowing that God hears a prayer is the same as knowing it is granted. The answer may come later, and the request is already received. The believer can rest in that before seeing the result.
1 John 5:15
“And if we know that he hear us - That is, if we are assured of this as a true doctrine, then, even though we may not “see” immediately that the prayer is answered, we may have the utmost confidence that it is not disregarded, and that it will be answered in the way best adapted to promote our good. The specific thing that we asked may not indeed be granted, (compare Luk 22:42; 2Co 12:8-9), but the prayer will not be disregarded, and the thing which is most for our good will be bestowed upon us.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 John 5:15
“We have - Faith anticipates the blessings. The petitions which we asked of him - Even before the event. And when the event comes, we know it comes in answer to our prayer.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
1 John 5:16-17
a sin not leading to death: Prayer is put to work for a brother committing a sin not leading to death. For a sin that leads to death three readings stand: denial of the Son, blasphemy Jesus named, sin judged by bodily death as at Corinth. John stops short of forbidding prayer.
1 John 5:16
“If any one see his brother - That is. any man. Sin a sin which is not unto death - That is, any sin but total apostasy from both the power and form of godliness. Let him ask, and God will give him life - Pardon and spiritual life, for that sinner.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 John 5:16
“We ought to pray for others as well as for ourselves; for our brethren of mankind, that they may be enlightened, converted, and saved; for our brethren in the Christian profession, that they may be sincere, that their sins may be pardoned, and that they may be delivered from evils and the chastisements of God, and preserved in Christ Jesus.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
All unrighteousness is sin: John guards against taking any sin lightly. Every wrong is sin, even the sin that does not lead to death. The distinction of verse 16 gives no license, only hope for prayer.
1 John 5:17
“All unrighteousness is sin ... - This seems to be thrown in to guard what he had just said, and there is “one” great and enormous sin, a sin which could not be forgiven. But he says also that there are many other forms and degrees of sin, sin for which prayer may be made.”
2 more voices on this verse
1 John 5:17
“All sin, as to the merit and legal sentence of it, is unto death. The wages of sin is death; and cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them, Gal. iii. But there is a sin unto death in opposition to such sin as is here said not to be unto death.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 John 5:17
“All deviation from perfect holiness is sin; but all sin is not unpardonable.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
Three Things We Know: Guard Yourselves From Idols
1 John 5:18-19
anyone born of God does not keep on sinning: Verse 18 repeats the present tense of 3:9, beside the provision of 1:9 and 2:1. The oldest copies read the One who was born of God protects him, the Son keeping the believer. Meanwhile the whole world is under the power of the evil one.
1 John 5:18
“Yet this gives us no encouragement to sin: on the contrary, it is an indisputable truth, he that is born of God - That sees and loves God. Sinneth not - So long as that loving faith abides in him, he neither speaks nor does anything which God hath forbidden. He keepeth himself - Watching unto prayer.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
3 more voices on this verse
1 John 5:18
“Whosoever is born of God sinneth not - This is spoken of adult Christians; they are cleansed from all unrighteousness, consequently from all sin, 1Jn 1:7-9. Keepeth himself - That is, in the love of God, Jud 1:21, by building up himself on his most holy faith, and praying in the Holy Ghost; and that wicked one - the devil, toucheth him not - finds nothing of his own nature in him on which he can work, Christ dwelling in his heart by faith.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 John 5:18
“This 1Jo 5:18 warns against abusing 1Jo 5:16, 17, as warranting carnal security. whosoever--Greek, "every one who." Not only advanced believers, but every one who is born again, "sinneth not." he that is begotten--Greek aorist, "has been (once for all in past time) begotten of God"; in the beginning of the verse it is perfect.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 John 5:18
IT is remarkable how throughout the whole of John's Epistle he continually uses the word, "know." It has quite refreshed me to carefully read through the Epistle and to observe how, as the clock strikes the same note again and again, John seems to have kept to this monotone—"We know, we know, we know."
Charles Spurgeon · written before 1892 · The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3161: “Positivism” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
We know that we are of God: Believers know where they stand, even while the world around them lies in the evil one's grip. The certainty rests on God's work in them. Jesus prayed at John 17:15 that the Father would keep His own from the evil one.
1 John 5:19
“And we know that we are of God - We who are Christians. The apostle supposed that true Christians might have so clear evidence on that subject as to leave no doubt on their own minds that they were the children of God. Compare 1Jn 3:14; 2Ti 1:12. And the whole world - The term “world” here evidently means not the material world, but the people who dwell on the earth, including all idolaters, and all sinners of every grade and kind.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 John 5:19
“We know that we are children of God - By the witness and the fruit of his Spirit, chap. iii, 24. But the whole world - All who have not his Spirit, not only is "touched" by him, but by idolatry, fraud, violence lasciviousness, impiety, all manner of wickedness.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
1 John 5:20-21
He is the true God and eternal life: The letter's last statement of knowledge: the Son of God has come and has given us understanding. The line He is the true God is read of the Son, as Thomas said My Lord and my God, or of the Father. The farewell warns against idols.
1 John 5:20
“And he hath given us a spiritual understanding, that we may know him, the true one -"The faithful and true witness." And we are in the true one - As branches in the vine, even in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. This Jesus is the only living and true God, together with the father and the Spirit, and the original fountain of eternal life.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
3 more voices on this verse
1 John 5:20
“We know that the Son of God is come - In the flesh, and has made his soul an offering for sin; and hath given us an understanding - a more eminent degree of light than we ever enjoyed before; for as he lay in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him unto us; and he hath besides given us a spiritual understanding, that we may know him who is true, even the True God, and get eternal life from him through his Son, In whom we are by faith, as the branches in the vine, deriving all…”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 John 5:20
"And the Son of God has come and given us understanding," which comes to us, that is, by faith, and is also called the Holy Spirit.
Clement of Alexandria · written before 215 · From the Latin Translation of Cassiodoruspatristic
1 John 5:20
“Plainly it is as the Mediator of ETERNAL LIFE to us that Christ is here contemplated. The Greek is, "The true God and eternal life is this" Jesus Christ, that is, In believing in Him we believe in the true God, and have eternal life.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
keep yourselves from idols: The letter ends on one warning to its little children. After the true God and eternal life of verse 20, anything set in His place is an idol, an image or a false Christ. Ephesus, where the early church places John, held the great temple of Artemis.
1 John 5:21
“Even an earthly serpent sucks in men at some distance with its breath. Going still further, John says, "My little children, keep yourselves from idols," -not now from idolatry, as if from the service of it, but from idols-that is, from any resemblance to them: for it is an unworthy thing that you, the image of the living God, should become the likeness of an idol and a dead man.”
Tertullian · written before 220 · De Coronapatristic
3 more voices on this verse
1 John 5:21
“Little children, keep yourselves from idols, Amen. From Heathen idols and idolatry, into which the saints in those times might be liable to be drawn, by reason of their dwelling among Heathen idolaters, and being related to them, and by the too great freedom used in eating things sacrificed to idols in their temples; and from all other idols that might be introduced by some who went by the name of Christians, as the Gnostics, who worshipped the images of Simon and Helena; and the passage may be an antidote against the worshipping of images, afterwards introduced by the Papists.”
1 John 5:21
“Little children - This is a favorite mode of address with John, (see the notes at 1Jn 2:1), and it was proper to use it in giving his parting counsel; embracing, in fact, all that he had to say - that they should keep themselves from idols, and suffer nothing to alienate their affections from the true God.”
1 John 5:21
“Keep yourselves from idols - From all worship of false gods, from all worship of images or of any creature, and from every inward idol; from loving, desiring, fearing anything more than God.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: The third cycle of the letter's tests brought to its close, with the purpose of the letter stated at verse 13, as Law classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Testimony, said again and again | Testimony, testify and testifies stand eight times in the Berean text of verses 6 to 11. The chapter builds its case for the Son on witness, human and divine.The chapter's Berean text, counted from the store, translation id 3, 1 John 5:6 to 11. | 1 John 5:6, 1 John 5:9, 1 John 5:10, 1 John 5:11 |
| The Spirit, the water, and the blood | Verse 8 names three witnesses that agree in one testimony. The site's published exposition of verse 6 records the water and the blood as the baptism and the death of Jesus, with the other senses named where they are held.This site's published exposition of 1 John 5:6, The exposition_notes row on 1 John 5:6, citing Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, and Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible. | 1 John 5:6, 1 John 5:8 |
| We know, three times at the close | Verses 18, 19 and 20 each open with We know or And we know in the Berean text. Three certainties close the letter: the one born of God is kept, believers are of God, and the Son has come and given understanding.The chapter's Berean text, counted from the store, translation id 3, 1 John 5:18 to 20. | 1 John 5:18, 1 John 5:19, 1 John 5:20 |
Where the chapter stands
5 more paragraphs on the patterns
Chapter 5 closes the third cycle of the letter's tests, which Robert Law traced from 4:7 to the end (The Tests of Life, 1909). Verses 1 to 5 join belief, love and obedience in one family likeness, verses 6 to 12 set out the witness to the Son, and verses 13 to 21 state the letter's purpose and its last counsels.
The words added to verses 7 and 8
Some later copies add words about three witnesses in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit. The Berean Standard Bible, following the older Greek manuscripts, prints verses 7 and 8 without them. Erasmus left the words out of his first printed Greek New Testament in 1516 and added them in his third edition of 1522. John Gill defends the words (Exposition of the New Testament, on 1 John 5:7), and the site's published exposition of verses 7 and 8 gives the history.
The debated reading: the sin that leads to death
Verse 16 names a sin that leads to death and does not define it. John Calvin reads it as a falling away from God with the whole heart, the sin of full apostasy (Commentary on 1 John, on 5:16). The site's published exposition of verses 16 and 17 names the other readings and keeps the verse from being turned against the assurance of verse 13.
This site records the readings below for this chapter. Spelling and word-order differences that change no meaning are passed over.
- The Three Heavenly Witnesses 1 John 5:7-8, at the verse ↑
Keep studying
Words12
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The context
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
The form and classifications
Robert Law, The Tests of Life, 1909.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the New Testament; Brooke Foss Westcott, The Epistles of St. John; Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 3.1.1; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentary on 1 John; John Gill, Exposition of the New Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.