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to 1Jn_5:1
1Jn_4:20 to 1Jn_5:1. Proof of the necessary co-existence of love to God and love to the brethren. The absence of the latter is evidence of the absence of the former; where love to God is, brotherly love also cannot be wanting.
1Jn_4:20. This verse divides itself into two parts, the second part confirming the thought of the first.
ἐάν τις εἴπῃ ] The same form of thought as in chap. 1Jn_1:6 ff.
ὅτι ἀγαπῶ τὸν Θεόν ] ὅτι is used, as frequently, at the commencement of the direct oration.
καὶ τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὑτοῦ μισῇ ] With μισῇ corresponds the subsequent ὁ μὴ ἀγαπῶν , comp. chap. 1Jn_3:14-15. Spener: “not only with actual hatred towards him, but even not loving him in perfect truth.” To hate is the positive expression for “not to love” (so also Braune).
ψεύστης ἐστίν ] see chap. 1Jn_1:6. The truth that he who hates (or, does not love) his brother, also does not love God, the apostle confirms by the contrast between ὃν ἑώρακε and ὃν οὐχ ἑώρακεν , in which the visibility of the brother is contrasted with the invisibility of God. The perfect indicates the permanent state; comp. 1Jn_4:12, Gospel of Joh_1:18. Lücke: ἑωρακέναι = “to have before one’s eyes;” a Lapide: “vidit et assidue videt.” Socinus incorrectly lays a certain emphasis on the preterite when he says: quandoquidem satis est ad amorem per cognitionem alicujus erga illum excitandum, quod quis ipsum aliquando viderit; nee necesse est, ut etiam nunc illum videat. The premiss for the conclusion of the apostle is, that the visible—as the object directly presented to the sight—is more easily loved than the invisible. Even the natural man turns with love to the visible,[285] whereas love to God, as the Unseen, requires an elevation of the heart of which only the saved are capable. Hence brotherly love is the easier, love to God is the more difficult. In him who rejects the former, the latter has certainly no place. The truth that love to God is the condition of Christian brotherly love, is not in contradiction with this; for that love, as the glorification of natural love, has its necessary basis in the natural inclination which we have to our visible brother, who is like us. It is therefore unnecessary to attach any importance to elements which the apostle here leaves quite untouched, as is the case with Calvin (with whom Sander, Ebrard, etc., agree) when he says: Apostolus hic pro confesso sumit, Deum se nobis in hominibus offerre, qui insculptam gerunt ejus imaginem; Joannes nil aliud voluit, quam fallacem esse jactantiam, si quis Deum se amare dicat, et ejus imaginem, quae ante oculos est, negligat;[286] and with de Wette in his interpretation: “the brother is the visible empiric object of love; whereas God, the ideal invisible object, can really be loved only in him.” By the interrogative: πῶς δύναται ἀγαπᾷν (comp. chap. 1Jn_3:17), and by placing the object τὸν Θεόν first, the expression gains in vivacity and point.
πῶς δύναται must not be taken: “how can he attain to that?” but: “how can we suppose that he loves?” (Baumgarten-Crusius). Bengel: sermo modalis: impossibile est, ut talis sit amans Dei, in praesenti.
[285] Oecumenius: ἐφελκυστικὸν γὰρ ὅρασις ἀγάπην . Hornejus: Sicut omnis cognitio nostra communiter a sensu incipit, ita amor quoque, unde facilius et prius amatur, quod facilius et promptius cognoscitur. Similarly Luther, Calovius, etc. Compare also the statement of Gregory (Homil. XI. in Evang.): Oculi sunt in amore duces; and Philo (ad Decalog.): ἀμήχανον εὐσεβεῖσθαι τὸν ἀόρατον ὑπὸ τῶν εἰς τοὺς ἐμφανεῖς καὶ ἐγγὺς ἀσεβούντων .
[286] The objection of Ebrard, that “it is not easier to love a person who stands visibly before me, and has, for instance, injured me, than a person whom I have not seen at all,” is overthrown by the fact that the apostle does not here make the slightest reference to the conduct of persons standing in visible opposition to us, by whom the natural feeling of love towards our equals is destroyed and turned into hate. As the apostle is contrasting the elements of visibility and invisibility, it is so much the more arbitrary to introduce here a reference to the imago Dei, as this is not something visible, but something invisible,—the object, not of sight, but of faith.