1 John 5:21

21. Omit the final ἀμήν with [831][832][833] and most Versions against [834][835].

[831] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.
[832] 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.
[833] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.
[834] 9th century. All three Epistles.
[835] 9th century. All three Epistles.

In all these cases [836] is almost certainly right; in not one is it certainly wrong. The combination [837][838] proves to be always right.

[836] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.
[837] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.
[838] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.

The chapter falls into two parts. The first twelve verses form the last section of the second main division of the Epistle, GOD IS LOVE (1 John 2:29 to 1 John 5:12): the last nine verses form the conclusion and summary of the whole. Some editors break up the first part of the chapter into two sections, 1–5 and 6–12, but texts and versions seem to be right in giving the whole as one paragraph. The second part does contain two smaller sections, 13–17 and 18–21. We may analyse the chapter therefore as follows: Faith is the Source of Love, the Victory over the World, and the Possession of Life (1–12). Conclusion and Summary: Intercessory Love the Fruit of Faith and of the Possession of Life (13–17); The Sum of the Christian’s Knowledge (18–20); Final practical Injunction (21).

It will be observed that in the middle of the first section we have what looks at first sight a digression and yet is intimately connected with the main subject of the section. This main subject is Faith, a word which (strangely enough) occurs nowhere else in S. John’s Epistles, nor in his Gospel. And faith necessarily implies witness. Only on the strength of testimony is faith possible. Therefore in this paragraph on Faith and its effects the Apostle gives in detail the various kinds of witness on which the Christian’s faith is based (6–12). The paragraph shews plainly S. John’s view of the relation of Faith to Love. The two are inseparable. Faith that does not lead to Love, Love that is not based on Faith, must come to nothing.

21. FAREWELL WARNING

21. τεκνία. As in 1 John 2:1; 1 John 2:12; 1 John 2:28; 1 John 3:7; 1 John 3:18; 1 John 4:4, this address refers to all his readers, and not merely the younger among them.

φυλάξατε ἑαυτά. As R.V., guard yourselves, to distinguish between τηρεῖν (1 John 5:18) and φυλάσσειν (2 Thessalonians 3:3). Both verbs occur John 17:12 : comp. John 12:25; John 12:47. The aorist imperative makes the command sharp and decisive: ‘once for all be on your guard and have nothing to do with’. Comp. ἐκτινάξατε τὸν χοῦν (Mark 6:11), ἐξάρατε τὸν πονηρὸν ἐξ ὑμῶν αὐτῶν (1 Corinthians 5:13). The difference between aorist and present imperative is well seen in John 2:16 : ‘Take these things hence at once (ἄρατε) and do not go on making (μὴ ποιεῖτε)’. The use of the reflexive pronoun instead of the middle voice intensifies the command to use personal care and exertion. See on 1 John 1:8. This construction is common in S. John (John 3:3; John 7:4; John 11:33; John 11:55; John 13:4; John 21:1; Revelation 6:15; Revelation 8:6; Revelation 19:7). For the reflexive of the third person with a verb of the second comp. 2 John 1:8; John 5:42. Winer, 178, 321. For ἑαυτὰ some authorities ([855]3[856]) have ἑαυτούς, which is the usual gender: the pronoun is rarely made to agree with a neuter form of address.

[855] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.
[856] 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.

ἀπὸ τῶν εἰδώλων. Perhaps, from the idols; those with which Ephesus abounded: or again, from your idols; those which have been, or may become, a snare to you. This is the last of the contrasts of which the Epistle is so full. We have had light and darkness, truth and falsehood, love and hate, God and the world, Christ and Antichrist, life and death, doing righteousness and doing sin, the children of God and the children of the devil, the spirit of truth and the spirit of error, the believer untouched by the evil one and the world lying in the evil one; and now at the close we have what in that age was the ever-present and pressing contrast between the true God and the idols. There is no need to seek far-fetched figurative explanations of ‘the idols’ when the literal meaning lies close at hand, is suggested by the context, and is in harmony with the known circumstances of the time. Is it reasonable to suppose that S. John was warning his readers against “systematising inferences of scholastic theology; theories of self-vaunting orthodoxy … tyrannous shibboleths of aggressive systems”, or against superstitious honour paid to the “Madonna, or saints, or pope, or priesthood”, when every street through which his readers walked, and every heathen house they visited, swarmed with idols in the literal sense; above all when it was its magnificent temples and groves and seductive idolatrous rites which constituted some of the chief attractions at Ephesus? Acts 19:27; Acts 19:35; Tac. Ann. III. 61, IV. 55. Ephesian coins with idolatrous figures on them are common. ‘Ephesian letters’ (Ἐφέσια γράμματα) were celebrated in the history of magic, and to magic the ‘curious arts’ of Acts 19:19 point. Of the strictness which was necessary in order to preserve Christians from these dangers the history of the first four centuries is full. Elsewhere in N.T. the word is invariably used literally: Acts 7:41; Acts 15:20; Romans 2:22; 1 Corinthians 8:4; 1 Corinthians 8:7; 1 Corinthians 10:19; 1 Corinthians 12:2; 2 Corinthians 6:16; 1 Thessalonians 1:9; Revelation 9:20. Moreover, if we interpret this warning literally, we have another point of contact between the Epistle and the Apocalypse (Revelation 2:14; Revelation 2:20; Revelation 9:20; Revelation 21:8). Again, as we have seen, some of the Gnostic teachers maintained that idolatry was harmless, or that at any rate there was no need to suffer martyrdom in order to avoid it. This verse is a final protest against such doctrine. Lastly, this emphatic warning against the worship of creatures intensifies the whole teaching of this Epistle; the main purpose of which is to establish the truth that the Son of God has come in the flesh in the Man Jesus. Such a Being was worthy of worship. But if, as Ebionites and Cerinthians taught, Jesus was a creature, the son of Joseph and Mary, then worship of such an one would be only one more of those idolatries from which S. John in his farewell injunction bids Christians once and for ever to guard themselves.

Of course the figurative meaning of ‘idols’ is not excluded by maintaining the literal meaning as the primary one. Thus Cornelius à Lapide having first explained the passage of actual idolatry, quia illo aevo hoc erat maxime periculosum, adds Mysticè, simulacra phantasiae hominum sunt prava dogmata, hœreses, phantasmata vana, avaritia, cupiditates honoris, pecuniae, voluptatis. Comp. Bacon’s idola tribus, idola specus, idola fori, idola theatri (Nov. Org. 39–44).

The final ‘Amen’ ([857][858] and Vulgate) is the addition of a copyist, as at the end of the Second Epistle and the Gospel. It is omitted in [859][860][861] and most Versions. Such conclusions, borrowed from liturgies, have been freely added throughout N.T. Perhaps that in Galatians 6:18 is the only final ‘Amen’ that is genuine; but that in 2 Peter 3:8 is well supported.

[857] 9th century. All three Epistles.
[858] 9th century. All three Epistles.
[859] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.
[860] 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.
[861] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.