outward and inward. The verb, with this moral sense, is com- mon in John and Paul, and is found elsewhere only in Mark vii. 5; Acts xxi. 21.
We lie and do not the truth. Again the combination of the positive and negative statements. See on ver. 5. The phrase to do the truth occurs only in John’s Gospel and First Epistle. See on John iii. 21. All walking in darkness is a not doing of the truth. “ Right action is true thought realized. Every fragment of right done is so much truth made visible” (Westcott).
7. We walk in the light (é€v to dwti mepuratapev). The phrase occurs only in the First Epistle. Walk, as above. In the light, having our life in God, who is light.
He is in the light. God zs forever and unchangeably in perfect light. Compare Ps. civ. 2; 1 Tim. vi. 16. We walk, advancing in the light and by means of the light to more light. “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day ” (Prov. iv. 18).
One with another (“er addAnrwv). Not, we with God and God with us, but with our brethren. Fellowship with God ex- hibits and proves itself by fellowship with Christians. See iv. 7,12; iii. 11, 23.
Of Jesus Christ His Son. Omit Christ. The human name, -Jésws, shows that His blood is available for man. The divine name, His Son, shows that it is efficacious. I shall be rendering a service to students of John’s Epistles by giving, in a condensed form, Canon Westcott’s note, classifying the several names of our Lord and their uses in the Hpistles.
The name in John, as in the Bible elsewhere, has two distinct, but closely connected meanings.
1. The Revelation of the Divine Being by a special title.
2. The whole sum of the manifold revelations gathered up so as to form one supreme revelation.