1 John 3:15

15. [629][630][631] have ἑαυτῷ for αὐτῷ or αὑτῷ ([632][633][634]). The reading remains doubtful.

[629] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.
[630] 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.
[631] 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.

[632] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.
[633] 9th century. All three Epistles.
[634] 9th century. All three Epistles.

15. πᾶς ὁ μισῶν. Every one that hateth. There is no exception. A man may call himself an enlightened believer, but if he has no love, οὐθέν ἐστι. See on 1 John 3:4. Quite as a matter of course S. John passes from not loving to hating. The crisis caused in the world by the coming of the light leaves no neutral ground: all is either light or darkness, of God or of the evil one, of the Church or of the world, in love or in hate. A Christian cannot be neither loving nor hating, any more than a plant can be neither growing nor dying.

ἀνθρωποκτόνος ἐστίν. Most of the earlier Versions render is a man-slayer. The word occurs only here and John 8:44. The mention of Cain just before renders it certain that ‘murderer’ is not to be understood figuratively as ‘soul-destroyer.’ Human law considers overt acts; God considers motives. The motives of the hater and of the murderer are the same: the fact that one is, and the other is not, deterred by laziness or fear from carrying out his hatred into homicidal action, makes no difference in the moral character of the men, though it makes all the difference in the eyes of the law. This is only applying to the sixth commandment the principle which the Lord Himself applies to the seventh (Matthew 5:28).

οἴδατε. Once more (1 John 3:14) the Apostle appeals to their consciousness as Christians: it is not a matter of experience gradually acquired (γινώσκετε), but of knowledge once for all possessed. He who is a murderer at heart cannot along with the deadly spirit which he cherishes have eternal life as a sure possession. Comp. ‘Ye have not His word abiding in you,’ John 5:38. S. John of course does not mean that hatred or murder is a sin for which there is no forgiveness. But ‘the soul that sinneth, it shall die’; and the sin of which the special tendency is destruction of life is absolutely incompatible with the possession of eternal life. ‘But for … murderers … their part shall be in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death’ (Revelation 21:8). Here, as elsewhere, S. John speaks of eternal life as something which the Christian already has, not which he hopes to win: comp. 1 John 5:13; John 3:36; John 5:24; John 6:47; John 6:54, &c. Eternal life has nothing to do with time, and is neither lost nor gained by physical death: see on John 11:25—The form of expression in this verse is similar to 1 John 2:19, being literally, every murderer hath not, instead of ‘no murderer hath.’ Omnis homicida non habet.