Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - 1 John 1:6 - 1:6
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
1Jn_1:6. Inference from 1Jn_1:5. He alone has fellowship with God, who does not walk in darkness.
ἐὰν εἴπωμεν ] The same form of speech ( ἐάν ) is repeated from verse to verse (only with the exception of 1Jn_2:2) until chap. 1Jn_2:3; then appears the participle with the definite article: ὁ λέγων , 1Jn_2:4, 1Jn_2:9; ὁ ἀγαπῶν , 1Jn_2:10; ὁ μισῶν , 1Jn_2:11.
The use of the hypothetical particles, especially of ἐάν , is also found very often in the Gospel.[53] On the 1st person plural, Lorinus says: suam quoque in hac hypothesi personam conjugit, ut lenius ac facilius agat; better Lücke: “By the communicative and hypothetical form the language gains, on the one hand, in refining delicacy, and, on the other, in more general reference and force;” unsatisfactorily Ebrard: “The 1st person plural serves only to express the general ‘we.’ ”
ὅτι κοινωνίαν ἔχομεν μετʼ αὐτοῦ ] see 1Jn_1:3. Fellowship with God forms the innermost essence of all true Christian life.
καὶ ἐν τῷ σκότει περιπατῶμεν ] comp. Gospel of Joh_8:12. ἐν τῷ σκότει περιπατεῖν is not merely “not to know whither we are going” (Luther), but to live in darkness, i.e. in sin, as our element. According to Weiss, who denies to the σκότος , as well as to the contrasted φῶς , an ethical reference, it is = “to walk in the unenlightened state;” but is not this just the very state in which the life is ruled by sin?
Bengel, for more particular definition, rightly adds: actione interna et externa, quoque nos vertimus; such a walking in darkness is all life whose principle is not the love of God.[54]
ψευδόμεθα καὶ οὐ ποιοῦμεν τὴν ἀλήθειαν ] for, τίς κοινωνία φωτὶ πρὸς σκότος ; (2Co_6:14). ψευδόμεθα expresses the moral objectionableness of such a contradiction between the deed and the word.
The negative clause is not a mere repetition of the same thought, but introduces along with it a new idea: ψευδόμεθα refers to εἴπωμεν ; οὐ ποιοῦμεν τ . ἀλ . refers back to ἐν τ . σκ . περιπατῶμεν ; for ποιεῖν τὴν ἀλ . is not merely = ἀληθεύειν (Eph_4:15), but signifies the practice of ἀλήθεια in word and deed; comp. Joh_3:21, where it is contrasted with φαῦλα πράσσειν , and is used expressly of ἔργα . In the common interpretation, according to which it is = agere candide, sincere (Cyprian, Theodorus, Socinus, Grotius, etc.), τὴν ἀλήθειαν does not receive its due force; by the article the idea is specified in its complete generality and objectivity: “the true,” i.e. that which corresponds to the nature and will of God (Brückner, Braune), although it must be admitted that the general idea is here used with special reference to the desirable conformity between word and deed; emphasis is thereby given to the fact that in the case mentioned in ἐὰν κ . τ . λ . the alleged κοινωνία with God is practically denied. In de Wette’s explanation: “to do that which corresponds to the nature of Christian fellowship,” a meaning is given to the expression which is neither indicated in the word nor in the train of thought.
[53] ἐάν is used—as Winer says, p. 260, VII. p. 273—with the idea of an objective possibility, i.e. when the particular event is to be represented simply as objectively possible, and the speaker does not want to express his subjective view of it (whether he considers it probable, desirable, etc.). A Tertium non datur (Ebrard) is not contained in it.
[54] That in περιπατεῖν there is a reference to the outward manner of life is self-evident, but that it only signifies this, as visible by the eyes of men, to the exclusion of the inner activity of life, is an unfounded assertion of Ebrard. The commentators rightly point out that this περιπατεῖν ἐν σκότει is different from “the failing and falling, through over-haste and weakness, in temptation and in conflict” (Gerlach); “it does not mean: still to have darkness in us” (Spener).