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1Jn_3:17. As the apostle wants to bring out that love must show itself by action, he turns his attention to the most direct evidence of it, namely, compassion towards the needy brother. “By the adversative connection ( δέ ) with 1Jn_3:16, John marks the progress from the greater, which is justly demanded, to the less, the non-performance of which seems, therefore, a grosser transgression of the rule just stated” (Düsterdieck). According to Ebrard, the δέ is meant to express the opposition to the delusion “that love can only show itself in great actions and sacrifices;” but there is no suggestion in the context of anything like this.
τὸν βίον τοῦ κόσμου : “the life of the world,” i.e. that which serves to support the earthly, worldly life; comp. Luk_8:43; Luk_15:12; Luk_21:4.[229] The expression forms here a significant contrast to ζωὴ αἰώνιος (1Jn_3:15).
θεωρεῖν , stronger than ὁρᾶν , strictly “to be a spectator,” hence = to look at; “it expresses the active beholding” (Ebrard, similarly Myrberg: oculis immotis).
With χρεῖαν ἔχειν , comp. Mar_2:25; Eph_4:28.
The expression: κλείειν τὰ σπλάγχνα , is only found here; τὰ σπγάγχνα as a translation of øÇçÂîÇéÄí appears both in the LXX. as well as often in the N. T. = καρδία ; “to close the heart,” is as much as: “to forbid to compassion towards the needy brother entrance into one’s heart;” the additional ἀπʼ αὐτοῦ is used in pregnant sense = “turning away from him” (Lücke, de Wette, Düsterdieck). The first two clauses might have had (not, as Baumgarten-Crusius says, “must have had”) the form of subordinate clauses; but by the fact that the form of principal clauses is given to them, the statement gains in vividness. The conclusion, which according to the sense is negative, appears as a question with πῶς (comp. chap. 1Jn_4:20), whereby the negation is emphatically brought out. ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ Θεοῦ is love to God, not the love of God to us (Calov).[230] Here also ΜΈΝΕΙΝ has the meaning noticed on 1Jn_3:15 (Myrberg); incorrectly Lücke: “as John is speaking of the probable absence of the previously-existing Christian life, it is put ΜΈΝΕΙ and not ἘΣΤΊ .” The apostle does not want to say that the pitiless person loses again his love to God, but that it never is really in him at all. Pitilessness cannot be combined with love to God; the reason of this John states in chap. 1Jn_4:20.
[229] Comp. the Greek proverb: βίος βίου δεόμενος οὐκ ἔστι βίος .
[230] Ebrard explains ἡ ἀγάπη τ . Θεοῦ : “the love which in its essential being took substantial form after Christ and in Christ’s loving deed” (!).