1 John 3:14

14. After ἀγαπῶν omit τὸν� with [623][624][625] against [626][627][628].

[623] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.
[624] 5th century. Brought by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, from Alexandria, and afterwards presented by him to Charles I. in 1628. In the British Museum. All three Epistles.
[625] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.
[626] 5th century. A palimpsest: the original writing has been partially rubbed out and the works of Ephraem the Syrian have been written over it. In the National Library at Paris. Part of the First and Third Epistles; 1 John 1:1 to 1 John 4:2; 3 John 1:3-14. Of the whole N.T. the only Books entirely missing are 2 John and 2 Thessalonians.

[627] 9th century. All three Epistles.
[628] 9th century. All three Epistles.

14. Love means life and hate means death.

ἡμεῖς οἴδαμεν. The pronoun is very emphatic: ‘the dark world which is full of devilish hate may think and do what it pleases about us; we know that we have left the atmosphere of death for one of life.’ This knowledge is part of our consciousness (οἴδαμεν) as Christians: comp. 1 John 2:20-21; 1 John 3:2; 1 John 3:5. Cain hated and slew his brother: the world hates and would slay us. But for all that, it was Cain who passed from life into death, while his brother passed to eternal life, and through his sacrifice ‘he being dead yet speaketh’ (Hebrews 11:4). The same is the case between the world and Christians. Philo in a similar spirit points out that Cain really slew, not his brother, but himself.

μεταβεβ. ἐκ τ. θ. εἰς τ. ζ. Have passed over out of death into life, have left an abode in the one region for an abode in the other: another reminiscence of the Gospel (John 5:24). The Greek perfect here has the common meaning of permanent result of past action: ‘we have passed into a new home and abide there.’ The metaphor is perhaps taken from the Passage of the Red Sea (Exodus 15:16), or of the Jordan.

ὅτι�. This depends upon οἴδαμεν; our love is the infallible sign that we have made the passage. The natural state of man is selfishness, which involves enmity to others, whose claims clash with those of self: to love others is proof that this natural state has been abandoned. Life and love in the moral world correspond to life and growth in the physical: in each case the two are but different aspects of the same fact. The one marks the state, the other the activity. Comp. συνέφερεν δὲ αὐτοῖς�, ἵνα καὶ� (Ign. Smyr. vii.).

μένει ἐν τῷ θανάτῳ. The μένει shews that death is the original condition of all, out of which we pass by becoming children of God. But each child of God loves God’s children. Therefore he who does not love is still in the old state of death. Comp. ὁ δὲ�, ἀλλʼ ἡ ὀργὴ τοῦ Θεοῦ μένει ἐπʼ αὐτόν (John 3:36). Note that both θάνατος and ζωή, like σκοτία and φῶς in the earlier part of the Epistle, have the article. That which in the fullest sense is death, life, darkness, and light, is meant in each case.