1 John 2:3Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

What is the perfection of love? To love even enemies, and to love them so that they may become brothers. For our love must not be according to the flesh. To wish temporal well-being for someone is good. But if that is absent, let the soul remain whole and preserved.

Do you wish life for your friend? You do well. Do you rejoice at the death of your enemy? You do badly. Yet perhaps the life you wish for your friend is unprofitable for him, and the death you wish for your enemy was profitable for him.

Whether this life is profitable or unprofitable for anyone is unknown. But the life that is with God is undoubtedly profitable. Love your enemies so that you desire to make them brothers. Love your enemies so that they may heed the call to be in communion with you.

For so loved He who, hanging on the Cross, said: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Lk 23:34). He did not say, "Father, let them live long. Though they kill Me, let them live."

What did He say? "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." By His all-merciful prayer and surpassing authority, He drove eternal death away from them. Many of them believed, and the blood of Christ which they had shed was forgiven them.

First, in frenzy, they shed it. Now, with faith, they drink it. Therefore we know that we are in Him, if we are perfected in Him. Giving instruction about this perfection of love for enemies, the Lord said: "Therefore be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt 5:48).

He also reveals the sure signs by which we may judge without error whether we truly know Jesus Christ, our Savior and our eternal and all-powerful Advocate before God the Father. Be attentive, and lay the apostle's saving instructions to heart, so that, always keeping them in memory, you may follow them daily.

"By this we know that we have known Him, if we keep His commandments." The apostle said, "We have an Advocate," in the same sense as if he had said, "We know the Advocate." To have an Advocate means to know Him surely. In the sense of the Theologian, truly to know the Advocate means to have the Advocate.

By knowledge the apostle means not only contemplative knowledge, but active knowledge, or knowledge joined with active love. In Holy Scripture, the words "know" and "love" are often taken in the same meaning.

Thus Jesus Christ says: "I am the good shepherd; and I know My own, and My own know Me" (Jn 10:14). He also says: "This is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" (Jn 17:3).

How, then, can we be assured that we truly know our Advocate before God the Father, Jesus Christ? What can serve as an unfailing sign of this knowledge in us? The keeping of God's commandments, answers the apostle. "That we have known Him," our Savior and Advocate, "we know by this, that we keep His commandments."

Active knowledge, or knowledge joined with love, which the Theologian means, is necessarily expressed in the fulfillment of God's commandments. Jesus Christ says: "He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me" (Jn 14:21). Also: "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word" (Jn 14:23).

True knowledge of God, love, and the keeping of God's commandments, or the striving to keep them, are inseparable from one another according to the spirit of apostolic teaching. As we know God, His perfections, His works, and the benefactions He grants us, we cannot fail to love Him as the highest Good and the Author of all the goods we enjoy and hope for.

Nourishing such reverent love for God, we cannot fail to strive to fulfill His commandments. Such is the property of our rational nature. According to this property of our nature, true knowledge of God is necessarily joined to love for Him. It is also necessarily expressed in the keeping of God's commandments.

Therefore the Theologian says: "That we have known Him," our Savior and God, "we know by this, that we keep His commandments." But whoever does not keep the commandments of God, or the teaching of Christ, thereby shows that he does not have true knowledge of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. So teaches the Theologian.

The beginning of the knowledge of God can be laid in the family, among those close to us. As a person grows from infancy and experiences the love of parents, relatives, and the surrounding members of his people, who are his nearest neighbors, he gradually learns to express the love innate in him from birth.

He learns to express it toward the heavenly Parent, who has united all nations not only by the bonds of kinship, but also by the bonds of faith in Him. He learns to express it toward all His creation: the earth, its depths, the plant and animal world, and everything in it and upon it. To preserve, protect, cultivate, and care for these is one of the commandments given to man in Paradise.

From love for God, man imperceptibly and necessarily passes to love for his neighbors. They reflect in themselves the properties and image of God, their Father, and are the objects of His paternal love and care.

He loves them as imitators of God, who by their life and knowledge of God draw near to God. By this they make easier for him the knowledge of God, who is unknown and unapproachable in His light.

The apostle everywhere uses the pronoun "we" to show that he does not exclude himself from the number of sinners who need justification through Jesus Christ.

In this sense, the expression "we know Him" is equivalent to the preceding expression in verse 1, "we have an Advocate." We have an Advocate, and we know, or have known, Him, in the sense that we possess and love Him.

"This blessed man is accustomed to use words of one meaning to indicate different subjects. For example: 'He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him' (Jn 1:10). So now he has used the word 'know' in different senses.

For the word 'know' expresses both knowledge of something and very close acquaintance with someone. This is its meaning in the words: 'The Lord knows those who are His' (2 Tim 2:19), and: 'He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us' (2 Cor 5:21)" (Theophylact).

Knowledge is understood not only in a contemplative sense, but as active knowledge, or knowledge joined with active love. It is love itself. Therefore in Scripture the words "know" and "love" are often taken in the same meaning.

"We know by this, that we keep His commandments": we have known Him, but by what can we be assured that we truly know our Propitiation, or Advocate? What can serve as an unfailing sign of such knowledge? The keeping of His commandments, if we keep His commandments.

Knowledge that is not empty and abstract, but actively joined with love, is necessarily expressed by the fulfillment of the commandments (Jn 14:21, 23). True knowledge of God and Christ, love, and the keeping of the commandments are inseparable from one another.

"Keep": there is a certain subtle shade of meaning between the expressions "to keep the commandments" and "to do the commandments" (cf. Lk 17:10; Mt 28:20 and parallels). To do what is commanded, or to do the commandments, refers more to external works or to the commandments of Christ's law.

The keeping or guarding of the commandments refers more to their inward fulfillment. It refers to guarding in the heart everything commanded by Christ, and to preserving the purity and chastity of the heart. It is important to do the works of the external law, but it is still higher to preserve inner purity of heart while outwardly fulfilling the law.

Second, true knowledge of God is the keeping of His word out of love for Him. "Whoever says, 'I have known Him,'" that is, God, "but does not keep His commandments, is false." Such a person's knowledge is cold and dead. It only puffs up and does not save. "But whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected." That is, perfect and saving love is seen in him as the fruit of living knowledge of God (1 Jn 2:4-8).

Third, true walking in the light consists in loving one's brother. "Whoever loves his brother abides in the light," and is a true Christian. "But whoever hates his brother is in darkness" (1 Jn 2:9-11). That is, he is in the darkness of ignorance concerning true Christianity, because the fundamental principle of Christian life has not yet touched his own life.

Of course, in life there are infinitely many degrees of love. Yet the apostle speaks of opposites and speaks absolutely: either love, or hatred.

Further reproducing the Lord's farewell discourse, the apostle raises the fulfillment of the commandments to the fundamental principle indicated there, that is, to love. "He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father," says Jesus Christ (Jn 14:21). The apostle says something similar in verses 5 and 6 (cf. Jn 13:34).