1 John 5:16

After the grand assurance that prayer is always heard, never unanswered, the Apostle specifies one kind of prayer, viz., Intercession, in the particular case of a “brother,” i.e. a fellow-believer, who has sinned. Prayer will avail for his restoration, with one reservation that his sin be “not unto death”. The reference is to those who had been led astray by the heresy, moral and intellectual, which had invaded the churches of Asia Minor (see Introd. pp. 156 f.) They had closed their ears to the voice of Conscience and their eyes to the light of the Truth, and they were exposed to the operation of that law of Degeneration which obtains in the physical, moral, intellectual, and spiritual domains. E.g., a bodily faculty, if neglected, atrophis (cf. note on 1 John 2:11). So in the moral domain disregard of truth destroys veracity. Acts make habits, habits character. So also in the intellectual domain. Cf. Darwin to Sir J. D. Hooker, June 17, 1868: “I am glad you were at the Messiah, it is the one thing that I should like to hear again, but I daresay I should find my soul too dried up to appreciate it as in old days; and then I should feel very flat, for it is a horrid bore to feel as I constantly do, that I am a withered leaf for every subject except Science”. And so in the spiritual domain. There are two ways of killing the soul: (1) The benumbing and hardening practice of disregarding spiritual appeals and stifling spiritual impulses. Cf. Reliq. Baxter, I. i. 29 “Bridgnorth had made me resolve that I would never go among a People that had been hardened in unprofitableness under an awakening Ministry; but either to such as had never had any convincing Preacher, or to such as had profited by him”. (2) A decisive apostasy, a deliberate rejection. This was the case of those heretics. They had abcured Christ and followed Antichrist. This is what Jesus calls ἡ τοῦ Πνεύματος βλασφημία (Matthew 12:31-32 = Mark 3:28-30). It inflicts a mortal wound on the man's spiritual nature. He can never be forgiven because he can never repent. He is “in the grip of an eternal sin (ἔνοχος αἰωνίου ἁμαρτήματος)”. Cf. Hebrews 4:4-6. This is “sin unto death”. Observe how tenderly St. John speaks: There is a fearful possibility of a man putting himself beyond the hope of restoration; but we can never tell when he has crossed the boundary. If we were sure that it was a case of “sin unto death,” then we should forbear praying; but, since we can never be sure, we should always keep on praying. So long as a man is capable of repentance, he has not sinned unto death. “Quamdiu enim veniæ relinquitur locus, mors prorsus imperium nondum occupat” (Calv.). δώσει, either (1) “he (the intercessor) will give to him (the brother),” τοῖς ἁμαρτ. being in apposition to αὐτῷ, “to him, i.e. to them that, etc.”; or (2) “He (God) will give to him (the intercessor) life for them that, etc.” The former avoids an abrupt change of subject, and the attribution to the intercessor of what God does through him is paralleled by James 5:20.