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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - 1 John 5:16 - 5:16
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
If any man see (ἐάν τις ἴδῃ)
A supposed case.
His brother
Christian brother.
Sin a sin (ἁμαρτάνοντα ἁμαρτίαν)
Lit., as Rev., sinning a sin. There is no exact parallel to the phrase in the New Testament. Compare the promise which He promised, 1Jo 2:25.
Not unto death (μὴ πρὸς θάνατον)
Describing the nature of the sin. The preposition unto, signifies tendency toward, not necessarily involving death. See on 1Jo 5:17.
He shall ask (αἰτήσει)
In prayer. The future tense expresses not merely permission (it shall be permitted him to ask), but the certainty that, as a Christian brother, he will ask. An injunction to that effect is implied.
He shall give
He may refer either to God or to the petitioner, as being the means of bestowing life through his intercession, as in Jam 5:20. The former explanation is the more natural. So Rev.
Him (αὐτῷ)
The brother for whom intercession is made.
For them that sin (τοῖς ἁμαρτὰνουσιν)
In apposition with αὐτῷ to him. God shall give life unto him (the erring brother), even unto them that sin. The plural generalizes the particular case described by ἁμαρτάνοντα ἁμαρτίαν sinning a sin.
There is a sin (ἔστιν ἁμαρτία)
Rev., margin, better, sin. A sin would express a specific act as such. Sin describes the character of a class of acts.
Unto death
The difficulty of the passage lies in the explanation of these words. It is impossible to determine their exact meaning with certainty. Some of the many explanations are as follows: Such sin as God punishes with deadly sickness or sudden death. All those sins punished with excommunication (so the older Catholic theologians). An unrepented sin. Envy. A sinful state or condition. The sin by which the Christian falls back from Christian life into death. The anti-Christian denial that Jesus is the Christ.
The phrase λαβεῖν ἁμαρτίαν θανητοφόρον to incur a death-bearing sin (A. V., bear sin and die), occurs Num 18:22, Sept., and the distinction between sins unto death and sins not unto death is common in Rabbinic writings. However John's expression may have been suggested by these, it cannot be assumed that they determine the sense in which he uses it.
Life and death in the passage must correspond. Bodily death and spiritual life cannot be meant. The passage must be interpreted in the light of John's utterances elsewhere concerning life and death. In 1Jo 5:12, he says: He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. In 1Jo 3:14, 1Jo 3:15, he says that he that loveth not abideth in death: that he that hateth his brother is a manslayer, and that no manslayer hath eternal life abiding in him. These canons of interpretation point to the explanation, in which some of the best authorities agree, that the sin unto death does not refer to a specific act, but to a class or species of sins, the tendency of which is to cut the bond of fellowship with Christ. Hence the passage is in the key-note of fellowship which pervades the Epistle. Whatever breaks the fellowship between the soul and Christ, and, by consequence, between the individual and the body of believers, is unto death, for there is no life apart from Christ. It is indeed true that this tendency inheres in all sin. Sin is essentially death. But a distinction is to be made, as Canon Westcott observes, between sins which flow from human imperfection and infirmity, and sins which are open manifestations of a character alien from God. “All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not unto death.” It must be carefully born in mind in the study of the passage, that John is speaking of sinful acts as revelations of character, and not simply in themselves. So Huther: “Such sinning as is characterized, not by the object with which it is connected, but by the disposition from which it proceeds.”
I do not say that he shall pray for it (οὐ περὶ ἐκείνης λέγω ἵνα ἐρωτήση)
Lit., not concerning this do I say that he should make request. So Rev. Prayer even for this sin unto death is not forbidden, but John says that he does not enjoin it. Note the sharp distinctness with which that terrible sin is thrown out by the pronoun of remote reference and its emphatic position in the sentence. Note also the words make request (ἐρωτήσῃ), and compare αἰτήσει he shall ask. On the distinction, see on Luk 11:9. Αἰτέω to ask, is used of the petition of an inferior, and is never used of Christ's own requests to God. Hence it is properly used here of the humble and affectionate petition of a Christian to God on behalf of a sinning brother. Ἑρωτάω is used of the request of an equal, or of one who asks on equal terms. Hence it may mark a request based upon fellowship with God through Christ, or it may hint at an element of presumption in a prayer for a sin unto death. Westcott cites a very early inscription in the Roman Catacombs as an illustration of the use of ἐρωτᾷν in the sense of Christian prayer for Christians: ἐρωτᾶ ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν pray for us.