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1Jn_3:7. While the apostle would reduce the specified antithesis to the last cause, and thereby bring it out in all its sharpness, he begins the new train of thought, connected, however, with the preceding, after the impressive address τεκνία (or παιδία ), with the warning directed against moral indifferentism: μηδεὶς πλανάτω ὑμᾶς , which, as Düsterdieck rightly observes, is not necessarily founded on a polemic against false teachers (Antinomians, for instance); comp. chap. 1Jn_1:8.
ὁ ποιῶν τὴν δικαιοσύνην , δίκαιός ἐστι καθὼς κ . τ . λ .] with ποιεῖν τὴν δικ ., comp. chap. 1Jn_2:29. From the connection with the foregoing we would expect as predicate either: ἑώρακεν αὐτὸν κ . τ . λ . (1Jn_3:6), or ἐν αὐτῷ μένει (1Jn_3:5); but it is peculiar to John to introduce new thoughts and references in antithetical sentences. By the subordinate clause καθὼς ἐκεῖνος (i.e. Χριστὸς ) δίκαιός ἐστι he puts the idea δίκαιος in direct reference to Christ, so that the thought of this verse includes in it this, that only he who practises δικαιοσύνη has known Christ and abides in Him; for he only can be exactly καθὼς Χριστός (i.e. in a way corresponding to the pattern of Christ) who stands in a real fellowship of life with Him. It is incorrect, both to interpret, with Baumgarten-Crusius: “he who is righteous follows the example of Christ,” and also to take δίκαιος = “justified,” and to define the meaning of the verse thus: “only he who has been justified by Christ does righteousness.”[209]
There is this difference between the two ideas: ΠΟΙΕῖΝ ΤῊΝ ΔΙΚ . and ΔΊΚΑΙΟΝ ΕἾΝΑΙ , that the first signifies the action, the second the state. The reality of the latter is proved in the former. He who does not do righteousness shows thereby that he is not righteous.[210]
[209] As there is no reference here at all to justification, there is no ground whatever for the assertion of a Lapide, that the thought of this verse forms a contradiction to the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith.—The interpretation of Lorinus, that ὁ ποιῶν τὴν δικ . is = qui habet in se justitiam i. e. opus gratiae, videlicet virtutem infusam, is also plainly erroneous.
[210] Braune rightly proves, against Roman Catholics and Rationalists, that “the predicate is not first attained after what is expressed in the subjective clause has taken place,” and that rather “the predicate is immanent in the subject.”