Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - 1 John 5:11 - 5:11
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
states in what way that witness of God shows itself as internal to the believer; to him who, by believing, has the objective witness of God in himself, it is no longer purely objective, but he experiences it in himself as a divine power, or as the ζωὴ αἰώνιος which God has given him
1Jn_5:11 states in what way that witness of God shows itself as internal to the believer; to him who, by believing, has the objective witness of God in himself, it is no longer purely objective, but he experiences it in himself as a divine power, or as the ζωὴ αἰώνιος which God has given him.[318] Hence the apostle says: “And this is the record, ὅτι ζωὴν αἰώνιον ἔδωκεν ἡμῖν ὁ Θεός .” With ἩΜῖΝ , ΤΟῖς ΠΕΠΙΣΤΕΥΚΌΣΙΝ is to be mentally supplied.
ΖΩῊ ΑἸΏΝΙΟς is not “the hope of eternal life” (Bede: dedit nobis vitam aeternam, sed adhuc in terra peregrinantibus in spe, quam daturus est in coelis ad se pervenientibus in re), but it is this itself, the divine life, of which the believer is even here a partaker; what the believer hopes for, that he has already.
ζωὴν αἰώνιον , as the principal idea, is put first.
ἜΔΩΚΕΝ means: “he gave;” it is not = promisit (Socinus), nor does it express merely the firmitatem et certitudinem promissionis divinae (a Lapide).
Myrberg incorrectly finds the import of the μαρτυρία of God stated in ὍΤΙ Κ . Τ . Λ ., which is in opposition to the context. The second part of the verse: ΚΑῚ ΑὝΤΗ Ἡ ΖΩῊ ἘΝ Τῷ ΥἹῷ ΑὐΤΟῦ ἘΣΤΙΝ , which is not dependent on ὍΤΙ (Baumgarten-Crusius), but forms a co-ordinate principal clause, gives a further explanation in regard to ΖΩῊ ΑἸΏΝΙΟς . Several commentators find this thought expressed in these words, that we possess the ΖΩῊ ΑἸΏΝ . in the Son, i.e. in fellowship with the Son; but this the words do not say; they rather state where the ζωὴ αἰών ., which God gave to believers, had its original place, namely, in the Son; comp. Joh_1:4. Frommann (p. 405): “the eternal life of which the Christian is by faith a partaker, is one with the life that dwells in Christ” (so also Düsterdieck, etc.). Braune incorrectly separates ΑὝΤΗ from Ἡ ΖΩΉ , as he puts ἘΣΤΊΝ between them in the thought, and refers ΑὝΤΗ to the idea ΑἸΏΝΙΟς : “and this … namely, ΑἸΏΝΙΟς … is the life,” etc.
[318] According to Braune, by ὅτι the import of the record is meant to be stated; but then John would be speaking of a different record from that which he mentioned before.