Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 John · About this commentary
That You May Know
1 John 5:13
13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. · WEB
The letter states why it was written, and the purpose is knowledge of something already possessed rather than pursuit of something not yet.
One verse, and it is the letter's own account of itself. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.
The addressees are named first, and it settles who the tests were for. This is written to those who believe — the letter's many ways of checking oneself were never a screening process for outsiders. They were given to people already inside, whose confidence had been shaken by watching others leave 1 John 2:19.
The purpose is knowledge, and the object of that knowledge is a present possession: that you have eternal life. Not that you may obtain it, or become worthy of it, or hold on to it. The verb for having is the same one used in the previous verse of having the Son 1 John 5:12, which is where the letter has just located the life.
This verse also explains the shape of everything before it. A document written to produce assurance will inevitably supply tests, because assurance built on nothing checkable is not assurance but mood. That is why a letter this warm is also this exacting, and why the two features are not in tension.
And the last clause turns knowledge back toward continuing — that you may go on believing. The assurance is not a conclusion to file away. It is what keeps a person in place, which is the letter's constant instruction 1 John 2:24.
settled What this mark means