1 John 3:18

My little children, let us not love in word S. John, as in 1 John 2:28; 1 John 3:13; 1 John 4:1; 1 John 4:7, hastens on to a practical application of what he has been stating as the principles of Christian Ethics; and in each case he prefaces his gentle exhortation with a word of tender address. -Dear children, do not think that I am giving you a series of philosophical truisms; I am telling of the principles which must govern your conduct and mine, if we are children of the God who is Light and Love."

let us not love in word, neither in tongue Or, as R. V., neither with the tongue. This is more accurate, for in the Greek -word" has no article and -tongue" has: both are datives of the instrument, and the article marks the tongue as the special instrument of the hypocritical love. Is there any difference between loving in word and loving with the tongue? And is there any difference between loving in deed and loving in truth? The answer must be the same to both questions. The oppositions between -word" and -deed" and between -tongue" and -truth" are so exact as to lead us to believe that there isa difference. To love in word is to have that affection which is genuine as far as it goes, but which is so weak that it never gets further than affectionate words: such love is opposed, not to truth, but to loving acts. To love with the tongue is to profess an affection which one does not feel, which is sheer hypocrisy: it is opposed, not to deeds, but to truth. It may shew itself also in hypocritical acts, done (as Bede points out) not with the wish to do good, but to win praise, or to injure others.

in deed and in truth Omit the second -in": the preposition is not repeated in the Greek. Tyndale and the Rhemish Version have no second -in". Comp. James 2:15; Romans 12:9. What follows, though intimately connected with the first part of the section (see next note), almost amounts to a fresh departure. The subject of love and its opposite is transformed into the security and serenity of conscience which genuine and active love is able to produce.