1 John 5:18

18. For ἑαυτόν ([812][813]2[814][815][816]) read αὐτόν ([817]1[818], Vulgate).

[812] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.
[813] 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.
[814] 9th century. All three Epistles.
[815] 9th century. All three Epistles.
[816] 9th century. A palimpsest. All three Epistles excepting 1 John 3:19 to 1 John 5:1. There is a facsimile of a portion in Hammond’s Outlines of Textual Criticism showing the late leaning uncial letters of the 9th century (Acts 4:10-15), with cursives of the 13th (Hebrews 7:17-25) written over them.

[817] 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.
[818] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.

18. οἴδαμεν. This confident expression of the certitude of Christian faith stands at the beginning of each of these three verses, and is the link which binds them together. We have had it twice before (1 John 3:2; 1 John 3:14; comp. 1 John 2:20-21; 1 John 3:5; 1 John 3:15): and perhaps in all cases it is meant to mark the contrast between the real knowledge of the believer, which is based upon Divine revelation in Christ, and the spurious knowledge of the Gnostic, which is based upon human intelligence.

The triple οἴδαμεν at the close of the Epistle confirms the view that John 21:24 is by the Apostle’s own hand, and not added by the Ephesian elders.

πᾶς ὁ γεγενν. ἐκ τ. Θεοῦ. As R.V., whosoever is begotten of God. A.V. changes the verb (‘born’, ‘begotten’), which does not change in the Greek, and does not change the tense, which does change in a very remarkable way (γεγεννημένος. γεννηθείς).

οὐχ ἁμαρτάνει. To the non peccat of the Vulgate Bede adds peccatum videlicet ad mortem; which is clearly not S. John’s meaning. The condition of Divine sonship is incompatible, not merely with sin unto death, but with sin of any description. The sentence is a return to the statement made in 1 John 3:9, where see notes. Once more the Apostle is not afraid of an apparent contradiction (see on 1 John 2:15). He has just been saying that if a Christian sins his brother will intercede for him; and now he says that the child of God does not sin. The one statement refers to possible but exceptional facts; the other to the habitual state. A child of God may sin; but his normal condition is one of resistance to sin. “Two things a genuine Christian never does. He never makes light of any known sin, and he never admits it to be invincible” (Liddon).

ὁ γεννηθεὶς ἐκ τ. Θεοῦ τηρεῖ αὐτόν. The Begotten of God keepeth him. The interpretation of ὁ γεννηθεὶς and the reading as to the pronoun cannot either of them be determined with certainty. The latter is the easier question and it throws light on the former. ‘Him’ (αὐτόν), on the high authority of [852]1[853] and the Vulgate, seems to be rightly preferred by most editors to ‘himself’ (ἑαυτόν). This ‘him’ is the child of God spoken of in the first clause: who is it that ‘keepeth him’? Not the child of God himself, as A.V. leads us to suppose and many commentators explain, but the Son of God, the Only-Begotten. On any other interpretation S. John’s marked change of tense appears arbitrary and confusing. Recipients of the Divine birth are always spoken of by S. John both in his Gospel and in his Epistle in the perfect participle (ὁ γεγεννημένος or τὸ γεγεννημένον); 1 John 3:9; 1 John 5:1; 1 John 5:4; John 3:6; John 3:8; also the first clause here. In the present clause he abruptly changes to the aorist participle (ὁ γεννηθείς), which he uses nowhere else (comp. Matthew 1:20; Galatians 4:29). The force of the two tenses here seems to be this: the perfect expresses a permanent relation begun in the past and continued in the present; the aorist expresses a timeless relation, a mere fact: the one signifies the child of God as opposed to those who have not become His children; the other signifies the Son of God as opposed to the evil one. It is some confirmation of this view that in the Constantinopolitan Creed, commonly called the Nicene Creed, ‘begotten of the Father’ (τὸν ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς γεννηθέντα, is the same form of expression as that used here for ‘begotten of God’ (ὁ γεννηθεὶς ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ). Moreover this interpretation produces another harmony between Gospel and Epistle. Christ both directly by His power and indirectly by His intercession ‘keepeth’ the children of God: ‘I kept them in Thy Name’ (John 17:12); ‘I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil one’ (John 17:15).

[852] 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.
[853] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.

The Latin renderings are remarkable: non peccat; sed generatio Dei conservat eum, et malignus non tangit eum (Augustine, Jerome, Vulgate); and peccatum non facit; quia nativitas Dei custodit illum, et diabolus non tangit illum (Chromatius).

ὁ πονηρὸς οὐχ ἅπτεται αὐτοῦ. As R.V., The evil one toucheth him not. A.V. here as in 1 John 1:2 (‘that eternal life’) exaggerates the article into a pronoun. For ὁ πονηρός see on 1 John 2:13 : strangely enough the Genevan here has ‘that wyeked man’. ‘Toucheth him not’ is somewhat too strong for οὐχ ἅπτεται αὐτοῦ. Ἅπτεσθαι, as distinct from θιγγάνειν (Hebrews 11:28; Hebrews 12:20), is ‘to lay hold of’; and one may sometimes touch where one cannot lay hold. See on John 20:17. The verb is very frequent in the Synoptists, elsewhere rare. In Colossians 2:21 the A.V. exactly reverses the climax by translating μὴ ἅψῃ ‘touch not’ and μηδὲ θίγῃς ‘handle not’. Here the meaning is that the evil one may assault, but he gets no hold. ‘No one shall snatch them out of My hand’ (John 10:28). ‘The ruler of the world cometh: and he hath nothing in Me’ (John 14:30). Therefore whoever is in Christ is safe.