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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - 1 John 5:19 - 5:19
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
19. οἴδαμεν. The conjunction must be omitted on abundant authority. This introduces the second great fact of which the believer has sure knowledge. And, as so often, S. John’s divisions are not sharp, but the parts intermingle. The second fact is partly anticipated in the first; the first is partly repeated in the second. Christians know that as children of God they are preserved by His Son from the devil. Then what do they know about the world, and their relation to the world? They know that they are of God and the whole world lieth in the evil one. It remains in his power. It has not passed over, as they have done, out of death into life; but it abides in the evil one, who is its ruler (Joh 12:31; Joh 14:30; Joh 16:11), as the Christian abides in Christ. It is clear therefore that the severance between the Church and the world ought to be, and tends to be, as total as that between God and the evil one. The preceding verse and the antithesis to God, to say nothing of 1Jn 2:13-14; 1Jn 4:4, make it quite clear that ‘the evil’ (τῷ πονηρῷ) is here masculine and not neuter. The Vulgate has in maligno, not in malo. Tyndale and Cranmer have ‘is altogether set on wickedness’, which is doubly or trebly wrong. Note once more that the opposition is not exact, but goes beyond what precedes. The evil one doth not obtain hold of the child of God: he not only obtains hold over the world, but has it wholly within his embrace. No similar use of κεῖσθαι ἐν occurs in N.T. Comp. Sophocles Oed. Col. 248.