1 John 5:20

20. For γινώσκωμεν ([819]2[820]) read γινώσκομεν ([821][822][823]1[824]). [825] and Vulgate add Θεόν after τ. ἀληθινόν. Before ζωὴ αἰώνιος omit ἡ with [826][827][828] against [829]: [830] inserts ἠ after ζωή.

[819] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.

[820] 9th century. All three Epistles.
[821] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.
[822] 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.
[823] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.
[824] 9th century. All three Epistles.
[825] 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.
[826] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.
[827] 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.
[828] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.
[829] 9th century. All three Epistles.
[830] 9th century. All three Epistles.

20. οἴδαμεν δέ. This introduces the third great fact of which believers have certain knowledge. The first two Christian certitudes are that the believer as a child of God progresses under Christ’s protection towards the sinlessness of God, while the unbelieving world lies wholly in the power of the evil one. Therefore the Christian knows that both in the moral nature which he inherits, and in the moral sphere in which he lives, there is an ever-widening gulf between him and the world. But his knowledge goes beyond this. Even in the intellectual sphere, in which the Gnostic claims to have such advantages, the Christian is, by Christ’s bounty, superior.

The ‘and’ (δέ) brings the whole to a conclusion: comp. Hebrews 13:20; Hebrews 13:22. Or it may mark the opposition between the world’s evil case and what is stated here; in which case δέ should be rendered ‘but’. “Since the two preceding verses are opposed, as asyndeta, to the 20th, which is connected with them by δέ, we may at once infer that 1 John 5:18-19 contain two more or less parallel thoughts, to which 1 John 5:20 presents one that corresponds to both. And so we find it. The preceding verses stated that we know in what relation our Divine sonship places us to sin and to the world. Here it is unfolded that we are conscious of the ground of this relation to both” (Haupt).

ἥκει καὶ δέδωκεν. Just as ἥκει includes the notions both of ‘hath come’ and ‘is here’, so δέδωκεν includes those of ‘hath given’ and ‘the gift abides’. It is the present result rather than the past act that is prominent.

διάνοιαν. Intellectual power, the capacity for receiving knowledge. The word occurs nowhere else in S. John’s writings: γνῶσις does not occur at all: σύνεσις occurs only Revelation 13:18; Revelation 17:9. Διάνοια indicates that faculty of understanding and reflection which S. Peter tells his readers (1 Peter 1:13) to brace up and keep ever ready for use. Comp. 2 Peter 3:1 and a beautiful passage in Plato’s Phaedo 66 A.

ἵνα γινώσκομεν. The force of this strange construction seems to be ‘that we may continue to recognise, as we do now’. Such combinations are not rare in late Greek. Comp. John 17:3; 1 Corinthians 4:6; Galatians 4:17. But in John 17:3 Westcott and Hort and the Revisers retain γινώσκωσιν. It is possible that the construction is the result of imperfect pronunciation. The subjunctive in certain cases was perhaps pronounced like the indicative and then written instead of it. The future indicative after ἵνα is comparatively common. Winer, 362. Note that it is the appropriation of the knowledge that is emphasized (γινώσκομεν), not, as at the opening of these three verses, the possession of it (οἴδαμεν). In ἵνα γινώσκομεν τὸν� we have another remarkable parallel with Christ’s Prayer: ἵνα γινωσκουσίν σε τὸν μόνον� (John 17:3). For ἀληθινός see on 1 John 2:8. Ὁ� here is not equivalent to ὁ� (Titus 1:2): the contrast is not with the father of lies, but with the spurious gods of the heathen (1 John 5:21). What is the Gnostic’s claim to superior knowledge in comparison to our certitude of such a fact as this? We know that we have the Divine gift of intelligence by means of which we attain to the knowledge of the very God, a personal God who embraces and sustains us in His Son. Christianity is not, as Gnostics held, only one of many attempts made by man to communicate with the Infinite. It is in possession of ‘the Truth’. The Christian knows (not merely gropes after) his God and his Redeemer.

καί ἐσμεν ἐν τῷ�. Here, as in 1 John 3:1, the Vulgate and many other Latin authorities make καί ἐσμεν depend upon the preceding ἵνα (et simus): wrongly in both cases. The new clause is a fresh statement clinching what precedes. Τῷ� means God, as in the previous clause. It is needlessly arbitrary to change the meaning and make this refer to Christ. ‘The Son has given us understanding by which to attain to knowledge of the Father’. Instead of resuming ‘And we do know the Father’, the Apostle makes an advance and says: ‘And we are in the Father’. Knowledge has become fellowship (1 John 1:3; 1 John 2:3-5). God has appeared as man; God has spoken as man to man; and the Christian faith, which is the one absolute certainty for man, the one means of reuniting him to God, is the result. For ἐν τῷ�. the Thebaic has ‘in the Life’.

ἐν τῷ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ. Omit ‘even’ which has been inserted in A.V. and R.V. to make ‘in Him that is true’ refer to Christ. This last clause explains how it is that we are in the Father, viz. by being in the Son. Comp. 1 John 2:23; John 1:18; John 14:9; John 17:21; John 17:23. Tyndale boldly turns the second ‘in’ into ‘through’; ‘we are in him that is true, through his sonne Jesu Christ’. We have had similar explanatory additions in 1 John 5:13; 1 John 5:16. [854] and the Vulgate omit ‘Jesus Christ’.

[854] 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.

οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ�. It is impossible to determine with certainty whether οὖτος refers to the Father, the principal substantive of the previous sentence, or to Jesus Christ, the nearest substantive. That S. John teaches the Divinity of Jesus Christ both in Epistle and Gospel is so manifest, that a text more or less in favour of the doctrine need not be the subject of heated controversy. The following considerations are in favour of referring οὗτος to Christ. 1. Jesus Christ is the subject last mentioned. 2. The Father having been twice called ‘the true One’ in the previous verse, to proceed to say of Him ‘This is the true God’ is somewhat tautological. 3. It is Christ who both in this Epistle (1 John 1:2; 1 John 5:12) and also in the Gospel (John 11:25; John 14:6) is called the Life. 4. S. Athanasius three times in his Orations against the Arians interprets the passage in this way, as if there was no doubt about it (III. xxiv. 4; xxv. 16; IV. ix. 1). The following are in favour of referring οὗτος to the Father. 1. The Father is the leading subject of all that follows διάνοιαν. 2. To repeat what has been already stated and add to it is exactly S. John’s style. He has spoken of ‘Him that is true’: and he now goes on ‘This (true One) is the true God and eternal life’. 3. It is the Father who is the source of that life which the Son has and is (John 5:26). 4. John 17:3 supports this view. 5. The Divinity of Christ has less special point in reference to the warning against idols: the truth that God is the true God is the basis of the warning against false gods: comp. 1 Thessalonians 1:9. But see the conclusion of the note on ἀπὸ τ. εἰδώλων in the next verse: also note κ in Lect. v. of Liddon’s Bampton Lectures, and Winer, 195, 202.