‘As long as the festivity Of Paradise shall be, so long our love Shall radiate round about us such a vesture. Its brightness is proportioned to the ardor, The ardor to the vision ; and the vision Equals what grace it has above its worth. Dante, ‘‘ Paradiso,” xiv., 37-42. 3. Every man that hath (ds o éywv). <A characteristic form of expression with John, containing “a reference to some who had questioned the application of a general principle in particular cases.” Here to some persons who had denied the practical obligation to moral purity involved in their hope. See vv. 4, 6, 9, 10, 15, 23, 29; iv. 7; v. 1, 4, 18; 2 John 9.
Hope. John’s only reference to Christian hope. The phrase used here, to hawe the hope upon one, is unique in the New Tes- tament. Compare é atte éIvn éAmodow “on Him shall the Gentiles hope ” (Rom. xv. 12): 7Amixapev émi Ocd Cave “we have hoped on the living God” (1 Tim. iv. 10). On the force of éywr, see on John xvi. 22.
In Him (é7’ advd). Ambiguous. Better, as Rev., set on Him.
Purifieth himself (ayvi%er éavrdv). On the verb, see on 1 Pet.i. 22; Jas. iv.8. In the Septuagint used only of ceremonial purification, and so four out of the seven instances in which it occurs in the New Testament (John xi. 55; Acts xxi. 24, 26; xxiv. 18). In the remaining cases, of purifying the heart and the soul (Jas. iv. 8; 1 Pet. i. 22). The kindred adjective ayvos , pure, has a moral signification in every case, as has the noun dyvorns pureness (only 2 Cor. vi. 6). “Ayniopos purification (only Acts xxi. 26), ceremonial.
He (éxefvos). Christ, as always in the Epistle. Pure (dyvos). See above. Though marking moral and
spiritual purity, and that of a very high grade, since it is ap- plied to Christ here, yet it admits the thought of possible