I John 5 · The Lantern

Overcoming the World

Everyone believing that Jesus is the Christ has been begotten of God, and everyone loving the one who begot loves the one begotten of him.

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.

John immediately joined love to faith, because without love faith is useless. According to charity, faith belongs to Christians, but without love it belongs to the demons. Moreover, those who do not believe are even worse than the demons.

And this is said in confirmation of the above. If we received from the Teacher the commandment to love one another, then, without a doubt, if we believe that our Teacher Jesus is the Christ, and He is the Christ in the sense that He is God and man together, we must also keep His commandments, as those of a Teacher and as those of God.

By this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God and do his commandments.

John was speaking just before of brotherly love, and said, "He that loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can he love God whom he seeth not?" But if thou lovest thy brother, haply thou lovest thy brother and lovest not Christ? How should that be, when thou lovest members of Christ?

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments. And John adds this persuasion: that whoever loves the one who created him loves also the one who is born of him. Then he uses a change of discourse and says that love for brothers or the children of God confirms love for Him who created.

In this we know that we love the children of God, etc. Therefore, he alone is proven to love his neighbor rightly who is known to burn with the love of the Creator.

For this is the love of God: that we keep his commandments — and his commandments are not burdensome,

And if we are called to the kingdom of God, let us walk worthy of the kingdom, loving God and our neighbour. But love is not proved by a kiss, but by kindly feeling. But there are those, that do nothing but make the churches resound with a kiss, not having love itself within.

Keeping the commandments is both the form and substance of our love for God. Those who obey them are brought close to God by them. If someone looks at them in the wrong way and says that they are heavy to bear, he is merely revealing his own weakness.

The commandments of God are irreproachable, because they contain nothing impossible: whence in First John: "This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome." He premises: "this is the love of God": for to one having charity the commandments of God are easy and sweet, but to one not having charity they seem difficult.

because everything begotten of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith.

And who is the one overcoming the world except the one believing that Jesus is the Son of God?

This is the one having come through water and blood, Jesus Christ — not by the water only, but by the water and by the blood. And the Spirit is the one bearing witness, because the Spirit is the truth;

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?

What flowed from his side was also the blood which cleanses us from sin and sanctifies the people of God.… It was not a mere man who appeared at the Jordan but the incarnate Word of God, to whom the Father also bore witness: "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Similarly, when he was hanging on the cross, what sounded to the people like thunder was the voice of G…

The third firmness of faith is that which proceeds from the witness of truth as expressed through the inspired word: and this occurred with all the prophets. And we have heard this Word, for it is the Spirit that bears witness that Christ is the truth. Some have actually seen Him in the flesh.

because there are three that bear witness:

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?

And (he says) the three are one. For these remain indivisible, and none of them is separated from its connection, because divinity is not to be believed without true humanity, nor humanity without true divinity. But in us also these are one, not by nature of the same substance, but by the operation of the same mystery.

The words also testify to this same thing, among which, although many there be, that one statement is express which the friend of the Bridegroom wrote in First John five: There are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.

the Spirit and the water and the blood — and the three are unto the one.

I would not have thee mistake that place in the epistle of John the apostle where he saith, "There are three witnesses: the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and the three are one." Lest haply thou say that the Spirit and the water and the blood are diverse substances, and yet it is said, "the three are one:" for this cause I have admonished thee, that thou mistake not the…

For there are three that bear witness: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three are one. Therefore, since three bear witness to Jesus' adoption, namely baptism, crucifixion, and resurrection, there is no uncertainty in the Lord's adoption: by which adoption He also granted us, as He who was the first fruits of the entire human mass (Rom.

The incarnation cannot be known unless one is aware of the distinction of Persons. For if you do not know the Trinity, the Father could have been incarnated and have suffered as well as the Son: and this is Sabellianism and Patripassianism. Likewise, if you suppose the Trinity and not the incarnation, you have a witnessing in heaven, but you do not receive it on earth.

God’s Testimony about His Son

If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God, that he has borne witness concerning his Son.

The one believing in the Son of God has the witness in himself; the one not believing God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness that God has borne concerning his Son.

And this is the witness: that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

The one having the Son has the life; the one not having the Son of God does not have the life.

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.

He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. Therefore, whoever has the Son through holy baptism has life. For as many as we have been baptized into Christ, we have also, according to His command, put on Christ. But whoever does not have the Son of God through baptism does not have life, but is dead.

He who has the Son, has life, etc. So that it may not seem too little to say that life is in the Son, he added that the Son Himself is life. Which the Son, glorifying the Father, also showed when He said: For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself (John V).

Effective Prayer

These things I wrote to you so that you may know that you have eternal life — to you who believe in the name of the Son of God.

I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God: that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe in the name of the Son of God.

These things I have written to you, that you may know that you have eternal life, etc. That you may know, he says, that you may be certain of your future blessedness, who believe in Christ, so that you are not deceived by the fraud of those who deny that Jesus is the Son of God, and therefore assert that nothing will benefit those who have believed in His name.

Here a kind of conclusion is drawn. I have written this to you, he says, as heirs of eternal life. For to those who do not live according to the hope of eternal life, this could not have been written, because to give what is holy to dogs and to cast pearls before swine is not praiseworthy (Matt. 7:6).

And this is the boldness that we have toward him: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

"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.

And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him. Then, since there is no other sign of this unquestionable faith except trust, which we find in Him through irreproachable faith, as we have also said before.

Then he says that the sign of this undoubted faith is none other than the boldness which we find before Him through blameless faith, as we also said above, and that in turn the sign of such boldness is the obtaining of everything we ask.

And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked from him.

If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he will ask, and he will give him life — to those sinning not unto death. There is a sin unto death; not concerning that one do I say that he should implore.

John, too, manifestly teaches the differences of sins, in his larger Epistle, in these words: "If any man see his brother sin a sin that is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life: for these that sin not unto death," he says. For "there is a sin unto death: I do not say that one is to pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin; and there is a sin not unto death."

But what presses harder upon the present question is that saying of the apostle John, "If any man know that his brother sinneth a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and the Lord will give life to that man who sinneth not unto death: but there is a sin unto death: not for that do I say that he should ask." For it manifestly shows that there are some "brethren" whom we are not com…

Having said that God fulfills our requests that are in accordance with His will, the apostle now clearly expresses his desire concerning what we should ask for according to God's will.

All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not unto death.

The True God

We know that everyone begotten of God does not sin, but the one begotten of God keeps himself, and the evil one does not touch him.

We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the evil one.

And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may come to know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.

"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.

In the Scriptures both you and We read, "That we may be in His true Son Jesus Christ; He is the true God and Eternal Life." Let both parties yield to such weighty evidence. Tell us then, whether this "true Son" of God, discriminated as He is by the property of this name from those who are sons by grace, be of no substance or of some substance.

And we know that the Son of God has come, etc. For what could be clearer than these words? What could be sweeter? What could be said more strongly against all heresies? Christ is the true Son of God. The Father of Christ Jesus our Lord is the true God. The eternal Son of God came temporally into the world, who was in the world, and through whom the world was made.

Little children, guard yourselves from the idols.

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…

Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. "keep yourself from idols." Some have questioned: If John writes this to the perfect, why does he now command them to beware of idols? We therefore say that because he wrote to the whole Church, which was not made up of a select people, but there were also some among them who were less affected.