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3:1-3:Look at what kind of love the Father has given us, namely
that we should not only be called sons of God, but really be sons, sharing in His very nature. "When He appears we will be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" In what way? In Mt 11:27 we read: "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him." For in the vision of God, the divinity joins itself to the created soul without even an image in between, even the three Divine Persons know each other within the Holy Trinity. So the Eastern Fathers with pardonable exaggeration said <we become God.> If we go back to the opening of John's Gospel, we can begin to get some glimpse: "In the beginning was the Word." That is, the Father speaks one Word. But it is not a ripple in the air such as our words, which cannot fully express the speaker. No, the Father's Word is substantial, and fully expresses Him. thus Father and Son know each other. But <yada> means not just mental knowledge: it includes will as well for to love is to will good to another for the other's sake. So the Father wills divine nature to the Son: thus He intellectually knows and wills or loves the Son. Father and Son together will divinity to the Holy Spirit. By this will the Spirit is constituted and is God --this is <koinonia>, sharing, in the most perfect way. This is the perfect <koinonia> which John speaks of above in 1:3. We are given to take part in this <koinonia>-- thus we share in the Divine Nature itself! So the Three Persons know and love each other and God IS love. The act of creating wills our being to us, and so we come into existence by the knowledge and will of God. Already 1:3. said we are in <koiononia> with him, John And also with others who have come to this divine life. Within this <koinonia> - we explained it above-- we will good to neighbor by willing that he be open (by obedience) to receive what God likes to give. But this love of neighbor entails also love of God, for by willing that our neighbor receive from God, we will that God may have the satisfaction of giving, which so pleases Him. We recall again the words of St. Irenaeus cited above: "God created Adam, not that He had need of anything, but to have someone to whom to give His goodness." St. Paul told the Ephesians (5:24-33) that marriage is an image of the union of Christ with His Church. Yes, marriage is aimed basically at the continuation of our race, but it does this by producing the <koinonia> of husband and wife. In this sense Pope Pius XI wrote brilliantly : "this mutual inner conformation of the spouses to each other, this constant zeal to perfect each other, can in a most true way, as the <Roman Catechism> teaches, be called the primary reason and cause of marriage, if it be understood not narrowly as the institution for procreating and educating offspring, but more broadly as the communion (really: <koinonia>), custom and association of the whole of life." (<Casti connubii>, DS 3707). The last line of v 3 adds an important conclusion: Everyone who has this hope, purifies himself, as He is pure. If we even begin to realize the goal expressed in the above lines, of being a sharer in the divine nature, we begin to see that all things on this earth are or little or no value compared to it. - we recall again what was said above about St. Paul's words saying all things in this world are so much dung compared to eternity. We spoke of <beginning to realize>: for there is an immense difference between what Cardinal Newman called notional knowledge and realized knowledge. If we read or hear there is a famine in Africa, we believe it. But it is not apt to move us much. But if we went to the famine area, and saw people dying, and got hungry ourselves: then we would know the same thing in a realized way. There is a large scale, a huge difference between deeply realized and merely notional knowledge. 3:4-10: The sinner violates the law and sin is lawlessness. And we know that He, Jesus, came to take away sin, and there is no sin in Him. So whoever remains in Him does not sin: Everyone who sins has not seen Him or known Him. So John begs his little children: let no one deceive you. He who does what is right is righteous as He is righteous. <Righteous> means is in accord with the true form, as we saw in 1:5. He who sins is of the devil, is a son of satan. Satan sins from the beginning. We note John does not say he <has sinned,> but <sins.> There are three kinds of duration: time, eternity and aevum. In time, all kinds of change are possible and do happen. There is deep change, i.e., substantial change. There is also accidental, shallow change. If we look ahead to the moment ahead of us it is future, but quickly it changes to present, and then to past. This restless unending cycle of change is characteristic of time. In eternity taken in the strict sense, there is no change, and so no past, and no future. Thus we say that God made the world, a past statement. But to His eye it is all present. We say Christ will return: again: to the divine eye it is all present. When a human sins, he never sees with ultimate clarity everything about this action. So there is room for him to reconsider, to go back over it, in the future and say within himself: That was not right, it was evil. I wish I had not done it, no more of that. But angels and devils are incapable of reconsidering. Humans, since their intelligence is composed on two parts, the material brain, and the spiritual intellect, never see things with absolute clarity at the time of sinning: the material instrument, the physical brain, hinders the clarity of the spiritual intellect. In contrast, the intellect of an angel or devil since it lacks the material instrument that is the physical brain, sees all with maximum possible clarity at the time of acting, and so cannot reconsider, and so cannot repent. So the devil, having once turned his will to evil cannot undo that evil: he is eternally fixed in evil; while angels are eternally fixed in good. So Johns says very exactly, not that the devil has sinned, but that he sins. He is eternally fixed in evil. But departed souls, and angels and devils are not in time, but in <aevum>, the kind of duration in which there is no substantial or deep change, but only accidental change. And that does not go on constantly like our succession of future-present-past. Those who are in <aevum> in a way participate in the timelessness of God. There is no constant change for them. In a way those in <aevum> are like God - they simply ARE as He simply IS. (For a soul in the vision of God, there is no boredom: God is infinite, and also they do not go through an endless succession of changes: they ARE totally filled, completely blessed). 3:11-12: For this is the message you have heard from the beginning: we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and killed his brother. And for what reason? Because Cain's works were evil, while the works of his brother were just. In Wisdom of Solomon 2:12-20 we see the wicked say that the just man is a reproach to them. So they plot to kill him by a shameful death. - We cannot help wondering if the inspired author wrote more than he understood, for the Chief Author, the Holy Spirit could clearly have had more in mind than the human author saw. Vatican II in LG 55 shows they are uncertain if the writers of Gen 3:15 and Isaiah 7:14 understood all the Church has gradually come to see in those texts, led by the full light of the Holy Spirit. So Cain could have been distressed by the life of his brother, which was a reproach to him. St. Augustine in <City of God> 15:7 thinks the sacrifice of Cain was not accepted because of a lack of the interior disposition of obedience to God. For it is that interior which gives all the value to a sacrifice. 3:13-18: Since we have moved over from the realm of death to life, we are a reproach to the wicked. No wonder the world finds us disagreeable. John calls one who hates his brother a murderer -- the sense is that hate consists in willing evil to another for the other's sake. Logically that is the root of doing evil to him, culminating in murder. Cf. Mt. 5:21-22. Then, whoever hates does not have eternal life remaining in him. For this is eternal life, namely: to know the Father and Him whom He has sent. (Jn 17:3). In heaven the soul knows and loves God -- both included in <yada>, and it reaches even to <koinonia> with Him, as we explained above. Even in this life we can have by grace, the Three Persons present in our soul. Now a spirit is present wherever it causes an effect. The effect is imparting the basic capability of knowing and loving Him later face to face. Some commentators, not seeing this link, have said that John at time speaks of realized eschatology. But the eternal life is both now and then. The practical test of this love of neighbor is doing good to him. If neighbor is in need, and we have the means, to refuse to help denies our claim of having interior love for him, for love wills good to another for the other's sake. 3:19-24: And this, namely the fact that our deeds show our love is genuine, reassures our hearts before Him whenever (or if) our hearts reproach us -- for God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything. So dear children if our hearts do not reproach us and our deeds to neighbor show that we are at least basically on the right side we can have speak confidently to Him, and we receive whatever we ask , since we keep His commandments and do what pleases Him -- the phrasing in the above is crucial. If we grouped words differently it might be taken to mean that even if our hearts reproach us we are still all right, for God still know our hearts. And this is the commandment, namely that we believe in the name of His' Son, Jesus Christ and love one another as He has commanded us. And he who keeps His commandments remains in Him. And by this means do we know that He remains in us, by the Spirit He has given us. - the Spirit leads us to know and do His will (Rom 8:9 & 2:14- 15). |