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1Jn_3:3 shows the moral effect of the Christian hope; not the condition with which the fulfilment of it is connected, as Lücke thinks. The same combination of ideas, only in the form of exhortation, occurs in 2Co_6:18; 2Co_7:1; 2Pe_3:13-14.
πᾶς ὁ ἔχων τὴν ἐλπίδα ταύτην ἐπʼ αὐτῷ ] namely, the hope of one day being like God.[198] “In the case of πᾶς ὁ ἔχ . we can, as in 1Jn_2:29, bring out the converse in the meaning of the apostle: every one … and only such” (Düsterdieck). The phrase ἔχειν ἐλπίδα ἐπί with dative only here; Act_24:15 : ἔχ . ἐλπ . εἰς Θεόν ; but ἐλπίζειν ἐπί with dative: Rom_15:12 and 1Ti_6:17.
αὐτῷ , i.e. Θεῷ ] God is regarded as the basis on which the hope is founded. The idea of maintaining (Spener) is not contained in ἔχειν .
ἁγνίζει ἑαυτὸν καθὼς κ . τ . λ .] ἁγνίζειν (comp. on 1Pe_1:22), not “to keep oneself pure” (à Mons, Bengel, Russmeyer, etc.), but “to purify oneself, i.e. to make oneself free of everything that is unholy;” in Jam_4:8 it is used synonymously with καθαρίζειν . This self-purification necessarily follows from the Christian’s hope, because the object of this is to be like God, and therefore also to be holy.
In reference to the opinion that this purification is described as an act of man, Augustine says: videte quemadmodum non abstulit liberum arbitrium, ut diceret: castificat semetipsum. Quis nos castificat nisi Deus? Sed Deus te nolentem non castificat. Castificas te, non de te; sed de illo, qui venit, ut habitet in te. The active impulse of this ἁγνίζειν ἑαυτόν does not lie in the natural liberum arbitrium of man, but in the hope, which the salvation work of God presupposes in man.
This purification takes place after the pattern ( καθώς ) of Christ ( ἐκεῖνος , 1Jn_3:4), who is ἁγνός , i.e. “pure from every sinful stain.” The want of harmony which exists in the juxtaposition of the ἁγνίζειν ἑαυτόν of the Christian and the ἁγνὸν εἶναι of Christ, must not induce us to take καθώς here otherwise than in 1Jn_3:7; 1Jn_2:6; 1Jn_4:17, namely = quandoquidem, so that this clause would add a second motive for the ἁγνίζειν ἑαυτόν , as Ebrard thinks; the sense rather is, that the purity of Christ is the pattern for Christians, which the Christian by self-purification strives to copy in his life also.
ἐστί : “the ἀγνότης is a quality inherent in Christ” (Lücke); the present is not put for the preterite, but signifies the unbroken permanent state; chap. 1Jn_2:29.
[198] Ebrard groundlessly would understand by ἐλπίς the treasure which is the object of the hope.