Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 John · About this commentary
The One Who Says He Knows Him
1 John 2:3-4
3 This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commandments. · WEB
The first of the letter's three tests is given, and it is aimed at people whose whole claim was superior knowledge.
Verse 3 introduces the formula that will govern the rest of the letter: by this we know. It appears again and again, and each time it attaches an invisible claim to something that can be checked 1 John 3:14 1 John 4:2 1 John 4:13.
The first test is obedience, and the wording repays attention. By this we know that we have come to know him: if we keep his commandments. The commandments are not what produces the knowing; they are how the knowing becomes visible. The letter is describing evidence rather than a transaction.
What makes the test pointed is its target. The people who left were claiming knowledge — the letter keeps quoting their boasts, and this is the third 1 John 1:6 1 John 1:8. Against a group whose whole position rested on knowing more, the letter proposes a test that a reader with no special insight can apply to himself.
Verse 4 states the negative case flatly, and the flatness is deliberate. Whoever says I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. There is no third category and no allowance for a knowledge that has not reached conduct. The letter's short, unhedged sentences are at their most exposed here, and it does not soften them anywhere.
settled What this mark means