Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 John · About this commentary
Loving the One Who Was Born
1 John 5:1-3
1 Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Whoever loves the Father also loves the child who is born of him. · WEB
The letter's three tests are finally tied into one circle, and the commandments are called light in the same breath.
Verse 1 begins where the letter always begins, with cause before evidence: whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. The perfect tense again, and the believing is the sign of a birth already accomplished.
Then the argument from family: everyone who loves the parent loves the child. It is offered as self-evident, which in a household it is. What it does is fasten the two commandments together one more time — love for God and love for fellow believers are not two obligations but one relationship seen from two positions.
Verse 2 is where the letter closes its circle, and it reads oddly at first. Earlier the test ran one way — we know we have passed from death to life because we love the brothers 1 John 3:14. Here it runs the other: we know we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments.
That is not a contradiction but a closed loop, and the letter has been building it all along. Love of God, love of one another, and obedience are three descriptions of one life, so any of them can serve as evidence for the others. A reader who cannot find one is meant to look for the next.
Verse 3 defines loving God as keeping his commandments and then adds a clause that a letter this demanding has earned the right to say: his commandments are not burdensome. What makes them light is stated immediately 1 John 5:4.
settled What this mark means