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1Jn_3:1. From the ἐξ αὐτοῦ γεγέννηται (chap. 1Jn_2:29) the apostle goes on to the thought that he and his readers are children of God, whence he deduces the necessity that exists for them of ποιεῖν τὴν δικαιοσύνην . First, however, he points his readers to the love of God, through which they have become children of God, inviting them to the consideration of it by ἴδετε .
ποταπὴν ἀγάπην δέδωκεν ἡμῖν ὁ πατήρ ] what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us. ποταπός (later form for ποδαπός , properly = from whence?) in the N. T., never in the direct question, is strictly, it is true, not = quantus, but = qualis (comp. Luk_1:29; 2Pe_3:11), but is frequently used as an expression of admiration at anything especially wonderful (comp. Mat_8:27; Mar_13:1; Luk_7:39), so that the meaning of qualis passes over into that of quantus; and so it is to be taken here also.
ἀγάπην διδόναι only here; διδόναι is more significant than ἐνδεικνύναι or a similar expression; it means: “to give, to bestow.” God has made His love our property (so also Braune). It is quite incorrect to take διδόναι = destinare, and, weakening the thought, ἀγάπην as metonymous for “love-token” (Grotius), or for effectum charitatis (Socinus).[190] The reference which Calvin finds in the word, when he says: quod dicit datam esse caritatem, significat: hoc merac esse liberalitatis, quod nos Deus pro filiis habet, is not indicated by John.
On ἡμῖΝ a Lapide remarks: indignis, inimicis, peccatoribus.
The name Ὁ ΠΑΤΉΡ points to the following ΤΈΚΝΑ ΘΕΟῦ .
ἽΝΑ ΤΈΚΝΑ ΘΕΟῦ ΚΛΗΘῶΜΕΝ ] Paulus, de Wette, Lüke, etc., retain ἽΝΑ in its original meaning; “the greatness of the divine love,” says Lücke, “lies in the sending of the Son” (chap. 1Jn_4:10). This thought is correct in itself; but the apostle is not here thinking of the sending Christ; it is therefore arbitrary to supply it; here there is in his mind only the fact that we—as believers—are called the children of God: “This is the proof and the result of love” (Spener); ἽΝΑ is accordingly used here in modified signification, synonymous with ἘΝ ΤΟΎΤῼ ὍΤΙ , only that by ἽΝΑ the ΤΈΚΝΑ Θ . ΚΛΗΘ . is more definitely described as the purpose (not, however, as the object of an act distinguished from it) of the love of the Father; Ebrard unsuitably gives the meaning by the explanation ΠΟΤ . ἈΓ . ΔΈΔΩΚΕΝ ἩΜ . Ὁ ΠΑΤῊΡ ἘΝ Τῷ ΒΟΎΛΕΣΘΑΙ ἽΝΑ Κ . Τ . Λ ., inasmuch as the love of God is bestowed on us, not in His will, but in the act which is the outcome of it.
ΚΑΛΕῖΣΘΑΙ is erroneously explained by Baumgarten-Crusius = ἘΞΟΥΣΊΑΝ ἜΧΕΙΝ ΓΕΝΈΣΘΑΙ , Joh_1:12, so that the sense would be: “that we have the right to dare to call ourselves God’s children” (Neander); it is very common to take καλεῖσθαι = ΕἾΝΑΙ , Augustin: hic non est discrimen inter dici et esse; this is so far correct as the name, which is here spoken of, inanis esse titulus non potest (Calvin), for: “where God gives a name, He always gives the nature itself along with it” (Besser); the ΕἾΝΑΙ is included in the ΚΑΛΕῖΣΘΑΙ ; yet the very fact of being called is significant, for it is only in the name that the being is revealed, and it is through that giving of a name that the separation of believers from the world is actually accomplished. ἵνα … κληθῶμεΝ is usually translated: “that we should be called.” Ewald adds: “at the day of judgment,” but it is not the future, but the present, that is here spoken of; κληθῶμεν is therefore not to be taken as the subj. fut., but as the subj. aor.: “that we were named, and therefore are called.” Braune would explain the apostle’s expression in this way, that being children of God is “a work only gradually accomplished, an operation;” incorrectly, for “being the children of God” is certainly “a simply stated fact;” comp. the ΚΑῚ ἘΣΜΈΝ and 1Jn_3:2. Instead of ΤΈΚΝΑ ΑὐΤΟῦ , John says Τ . ΘΕΟῦ , because he wants to state the full name itself. The view of Baumgarten-Crusius has less in its favour, that the apostle contrasted πατήρ and ΘΕΟῦ in order to indicate: “He bestowed it on us lovingly, that we should be connected with the Godhead, inasmuch as the former describes the divine will, the latter the divine nature.”
καὶ ἐσμέν , which according to the majority of authorities is scarcely a mere gloss (see the critical notes), says John in an independent form, not depending on ἽΝΑ (the Vulgate erroneously = simus),[191] in order still more specially to bring out the element of being, which was certainly contained already in κληθῶμεν .
Not in order to comfort believers in regard to the persecutions which they have to suffer from the world (de Wette, Lücke, etc.), but to specify the contrast in which believers as τέκνα Θεοῦ stand to the world, and the greatness of the love of the Father who has given them that name, the apostle continues: διὰ τοῦτο ὁ κόσμος οὐ γινώσκει ἡμᾶς ] διὰ τοῦτο refers back to the preceding thought (Bengel, de Wette, Brückner, Braune); thus: therefore, because we are children of God; the following ὅτι then serves to confirm the reason why the world does not know us as children of God. It is true, διὰ τοῦτο might be also directly referred to ὅτι (Baumgarten-Crusius, also perhaps Lücke, Ewald); but with this reference the sentence would come in too disconnectedly.
With ὁ κόσμος comp. chap. 1Jn_2:15.
οὐ γινώσκει means: “does not know us,” i.e. our inner nature, which we as τέκνα Θεοῦ possess, is to the world something incomprehensible; to it, alienated from God, what is godly is strange and inconceivable; comp. Joh_14:17. Many commentators unnecessarily deviate from this proper meaning of the word; thus Grotius, who interprets it = non agnoscit pro suis; Semler = nos rejicit, reprobat; Baumgarten-Crusius = μισεῖ (“therefore the world cannot endure us, because it cannot endure Him
God”).
ὅτι οὐκ ἔγνω αὐτόν ] “for it did not know Him” (namely, God or the Father); S. Schmid erroneously explains ἔγνω by: credere in Deum; Episcopius by: jussa Dei observare; John’s idea of knowledge is to be retained, as in the case of γινώσκει , so also in ἔγνω (Düsterdieck, Ebrard, Braune).
[190] A Lapide interprets ἀγάπην in the Catholic interest: i.e. charitatem tum activam (actum amoris Dei quo nos mire amat), tum passivam nobisque a Deo communicatam et infusam. Videte quantam charitatem … nobis … praestitit et exhibuit Deus, cum … charitatem creatam nobis dedit et infudit, qua filii Dei nominamur et sumus.—Very appropriately Luther, in his Scholia: usus est Joannes singulari verborum poudere: non dicit, dedisse nobis Deum donum aliquod, sed ipsam caritatem et fontem omnium bonorum, cor ipsum, etc.
[191] Ebrard thinks that ἐσμέν may be dependent upon ἵνα , not certainly according to Buttmann’s, but according to John’s grammar; incorrectly, for the present indicative after ἵνα is not surely attested in John even by a single passage, whilst it is unmistakeably in Paul, 1Co_4:6 and Gal_4:17 (comp. in addition, Al. Buttmann, p. 202, note); it therefore appears most probable that καὶ ἐσμέν is added by John, not indeed as a triumphant exclamation, but as an utterance about the actual present state of his readers, confirming the preceding. If ἐσμέν is regarded as dependent on ἵνα , we are compelled to weaken the idea κληθῶμεν , for Ebrard’s supposition that in κληθῶμεν is contained the relationship of God to us, or the element of “being reconciled,” and in ἐσμέν , on the other hand, “our relationship to God, or the element of the conversion and renewal of our nature,” lacks any tenable ground.