Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

1 John 3:19,20

A crux interpretum. Read τὴν καρδίαν ἡμῶν ὅ, τι ἐάν (i.e. ἄν), and take the subsequent ὅτι as “because”. The foregoing exhortation may have awakened a misgiving in our minds: “Am I loving as I ought?” Our failures in duty and service rise up before us, and “our heart condemns us”. So the Apostle furnishes a grand reassurance: “Herein shall we get to know that we are of the Truth, and in His presence shall assure our heart, whereinsoever our heart may condemn us, because, etc.”. The reassurance is two-fold: (1) The worst that is in us is known to God (cf. Aug.: Cor tuum abscondis ab homine; a Deo absconde si potes), and still He cares for us and desires us. Our discovery has been an open secret to Him all along. (2) He “readeth everything” sees the deepest things, and these are the real things. This is the true test of a man: Is the deepest that is in him the best? Is he better than he seems? His failures lie on the surface: is there a desire for goodness deep down in his soul? Is he glad to escape from superficial judgments and be judged by God who “readeth everything,” who sees “with larger other eyes than ours, to make allowance for us all”? Cf. F. W. Robertson, Lett. lvi.: “I remember an anecdote of Thomas Scott having said to his curate, who was rather agitated on having to preach before him, ‘Well, sir, why should you be afraid before me, when you are not afraid before God?' But how very easy it was to answer! He had only to say, God is not jealous, nor envious, nor censorious; besides, God can make allowances”. So Browning:

“Thoughts hardly to be packed

Into a narrow act,

Fancies that broke through language and escaped;

All I could never be,

All, men ignored in me,

This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.”

ἔμπροσθεν αὐτοῦ, and what matter how we appear ἔμπροσθεν τῶν ἀνθρώπων (Matthew 6:1.)? πείσομεν, “persuade,' i.e. pacify, win the confidence, soothe the alarm, of our heart. Cf. Matthew 28:14. Otherwise: “we shall persuade our heart … that greater is God”. But how can love for the brethren yield this inference? γινώσκει πάντα, “readeth every secret”. Cf. John 2:25. A quite different and less satisfying sense is got by punctuating τὴν καρδίαν ἡμῶν. ὅτι ἐάν, κ. τ. λ. The second ὅτι is then a difficulty and has been dealt with in three ways: (1) It has been ignored as redundant: “For if our heart condemn us, God is greater, etc.” (A.V. fortified by the omission of the participle in some inferior MSS.). (2) An ellipse has been assumed either of the substantive verb: “because if our heart condemns us, (it is) because God, etc.” (Alford), or of δῆλον (Field, who compares 1 Timothy 6:7): “it is plain that God, etc.” (3) ὅτι has been conjecturally emended into ἔτι (Steph., Bez.): “still greater is God, etc.”.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

1 John 3:19,20

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