NOTES for Jo1 2:12-17

¹²I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake.

¹³I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father.

¹⁴I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.

¹⁵Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

¹⁶For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

¹⁷And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

The apostle and evangelist John has already told us that knowing God must necessarily be expressed in keeping the commandments. In the one who keeps God's word, the love of God has been completed, that is, has become fully perfect. Continuing his thought, in today's passage the apostle speaks about exactly which commandments he has in mind. After all, a Jew might understand his words as a call to keep secondary commandments, such as hygienic prescriptions or regulations about fasting.

The apostle's word sounds with complete definiteness and clarity. He emphasizes that he is giving not a new commandment, but the one that from the beginning was the meaning even of the Old Testament. At the same time, this commandment is new, because Christ's light makes it clear and, most importantly, possible to fulfill. And here we must listen to his words. According to the apostle, the absence of stumbling and life in the light are determined by only one thing: love for one's brother.

It is significant that in this case what is meant is not a close relative or a brother in faith, but anyone who shares our human nature. This is sufficiently clear from the words Christ speaks at the end of the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Everyone who is angry with his brother, the Lord says, is liable to judgment. The apostle John expresses the same thought in these words: whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Therefore, when we act while moved by a lack of love, our hatred for our brothers testifies to us that we ourselves are in darkness.

Other notes

For Jo1 2:15

¹⁵Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

The wish not to sin, and if one should fall into sin, to turn to Christ, whose... Read more

How should these words be understood? Is the world really worthy only of rejection? It seems that the issue is not literal lack of love for the world, created beautiful by God, but the rejection of the fallen state of the world, of the sin that permeates the world. By taking sinfulness as an inseparable property of the world and using it to justify our own sinful inclinations, we really do turn away from the love of the Father.

For Jo1 2:7-17

⁷Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning.

⁸Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.

⁹He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.

¹⁰He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.

¹¹But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.

¹²I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake.

¹⁵Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

¹⁶For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

¹⁷And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

“I have written to you, young men, because you are strong...” Let us listen today to these words of the apostle. For very often... Read more

“I have written to you, young men, because you are strong...” Let us listen today to these words of the apostle. For we very often like to quote the words the Lord spoke to the apostle Paul: My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). This somehow comforts us in our own weakness; we feel better at the thought that even a man such as Paul was weak, so what can be said about us? We use this to excuse ourselves and say that if we leave something unfinished, it is because of our weakness; the Lord simply did not wish His power to be manifested in us on that occasion. But are we right to think this way? Are we always right in such a situation? It seems that we are not always right. “I have written to you, young men, because you are strong...” We must not merely rely on God’s power; we must also train the strength within ourselves. In this connection we recall a poem by Nikolay Gumilev, or more precisely a fragment from it (“Vision,” 1916):
He lay exhausted on a bed of sickness
(What is more bitter, more grievous than a bed of sickness?),
And suddenly his weary eyes caught fire;
He sees, he hears in sacred rapture—
Emerging from the gloom, emerging from the night,
Saint Panteleimon and George the warrior.
<...>
And following his friend comes George
(Like trumpets of victory, George proclaims):
“Renouncing battles, you thirsted for salvation,
But the tears of the strong are not right before God,
And God did not hear your renunciation;
Tomorrow you will rise, and rise for glory.”
<...>
In fact, even on a bed of serious illness we can be strong enough not to renounce God by acknowledging our weakness.

For Jo1 2:1-17

¹My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:

²And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

³And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.

⁴He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

⁵But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.

⁶He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.