Confidence in Asking
14 This is the boldness which we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he listens to us. 15 And if we know that he listens to us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him.
The promise about prayer is repeated with the qualification the earlier one left unstated, and the qualification turns out to be a comfort.
Verse 14 uses the letter's word for boldness a fourth time 1 John 2:28 1 John 3:21 1 John 4:17, and here it is applied to asking. The confidence is described as something we have toward him, a standing condition rather than a mood summoned for the occasion.
The qualification is the part the earlier promise left implicit 1 John 3:22: if we ask anything according to his will. Read as a restriction it can sound like a clause designed to explain unanswered prayer. Read in the letter's own terms it is the opposite.
The letter has spent five chapters arguing that a believer has been born of God, has his seed remaining, has an anointing, and has been given of his Spirit. Someone so described is not a stranger guessing at what God wants. The qualification therefore does not narrow the promise so much as identify who is making the request — a person whose wanting has been reshaped by the birth the letter keeps describing.
Verse 15 then draws a conclusion that runs further than expected. If we know that he hears us, we know that we have the requests we have asked of him. The having is stated in the present tense, before anything visible has changed.
That is the same move the letter has made about eternal life two verses earlier 1 John 5:13. What God has granted is treated as possessed, whether or not it has yet arrived.
settled What this mark means