The thought of the new fellowship which has come by the Gospel leads to another near akin to it — that of the knowledqe which the same Gospel requires and makes possible. The position in which those addressed were at the time, furnishes the occasion for speaking with emphasis and decision of the knowledge with which alone the believer is concerned, and of spurious forms with lofty preten- sions. So the writer declares the knowledge of God in its reality to be possible only where the humble way of practical ooedience to God's com- mandments is followed ; in which connexion lie urges the necessity of walking as Christ walked. In further illustration of the kind of life which befits the Christian, he identifies the walk in the light with the walk in brotherly love, and holds before his readers the duty of loving the brethren as the commandment of commandments, one at once old and new (3''"). He warns these Christians also against the love of the world and the seduc- tions of false teachers, which are contrary to the love of the brethren, and presses this warning with the greater insistence because the world's oppor- tunity is now short. It is the last time with it and all things, as is witnessed by the fact that many antichrists have appeared. These antichrists .ire described, and the description is pointed by an I'xhortation to these believers to abide in that know- ledge which they have by the Holy Ghost, a know- ledge which cannot deceive, so that they may not be put to shame in the great day of the Lord's Parousia (2"-«).
The thought of God as light passes over next into the thought of God as righteous. Following out this new idea, the writer proceeds to say that cinly he who is righteous can be the child of God ; that the man who has the hope of being like God or Christ must purify himself ; and that, as Christ is sinless, he who is in Christ cannot sin. But he adds, with an eye to the subtle deception of the false teachers, that to be righteous means to do righteousness, and in sharp and decisive terms dis- tinguishes those who sin as the children of the ievil, from those wlio do not and cannot sin as the children of God. He identifies this righteousness also, which is the note of the son of God, as he had previously done in the case of the walk in light, with the love of the brethren, and again warns his readers against the love of the world, which, as was seen in the instance of Cain, means hatred of the children of God (2=»-3'=). At this point he sets Christ before them again as the supreme pattern of Christian love — a love which must be in deed and truth, and which carries \\-ith
it these two blessings — the consciousness of being of the truth and the confidence that our prayeri shall be heard. Touching again on God s com- mandment, he shows that it, too, means twg things, viz. belief in Christ and love of one another, and explains that he who keeps the divine com- mandments not only is in fellowship with God, but lias tlirough the Spirit the consciousness of tha* fellowship (3'-'-").
Keturninjj to the question of the inimcJiata dangers which tlireatened his readers, the writer speaks again of the false projjhets ; and his words oi warning on that subject become the occasion for taking up anew the two great themes — the law of love and the keeping of God's commandments, which are so niucli in his view. He repeats his cautions against the seductions of misleading teachers, and indicates the marks of distinction between the spirit of God and the spirit of Anti- christ, between the spirit of truth and the spirit of error (4'"'). He urges a^ain the supreme duty of love — love to God indeed in the first instance, but also, and more particularly in this case, love to man. He reminds those for whom he is so solicitous, that the man who is of God is of love, called to love Him who Himself is love, and who has given the last proof of that in the mission and propitiatory death of His Son. To love God, he tells them, is to be in God, and to have God in them, and to be delivered from the torment of fear. It is all this, but it is also a love that gives proof of itself in the obvious practical duties of loving the brethren and keeping the divine commandments. And these commandments, he adds, wliatever they may be to otliers, cannot be grievous to those who are begotten of God (4''-5'). The mention of this new relation to God, expressed by the term ' begotten of God,' forms a natural point of transition to the idea of the new mental attitude that goes with the new birth. So the writer comes to speak of faith, — of what it is as belief in Jesus as the Son of God, and of the w . tness which it carries with it to His being that; of the victorious might that is in that belief, and of the witness as something more than any external testimony — a witness which the believer has in himself (5*'"). As the letter approaches its con- clusion he states again the great object with which it has been written. He refers once more to what prayer is to the children of God, the confidence in it which is their prerogative, and the things they are entitled to ask (S"*'"). He brings the Epistle to an end by proclaiming anew the separation of the Christian from sin and from the wicked one ; the privilege which is the Chris- tian's both in understanding and in possession ; and the necessity that is laid upon those who know the true God and have fellowship with Him to keep themselves from idols (5'*"^').