1 John 3:24Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

And since this is the Lord’s commandment, when we abide in Him, He all the more gives us Himself. For He cannot deny Himself. That is, it cannot be admitted that He gives us His commandments in vain and will not justify them first of all Himself. If this is so, then when we fulfill what He has commanded, He too will undoubtedly hear us in our petitions. His gift will be firm in us. The whole thought is this: we must believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and truly love one another, as He commanded. For he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And that He abides in us, we know by the Spirit, or by the gift, which He gave us. If this gift abides in us unbroken, then, beyond all contradiction, His giving will be inalienable. When, then, is it unbroken? When, through our negligence, we violate nothing of what He commanded us concerning love.

If, when the Holy Spirit lives in us, God lives in us, then how is the Spirit not God and not from God? Whoever has Him bears within himself the indwelling God, Who also says through the prophet: “I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God” (2 Cor 6:16). And if the Spirit is God and from God, then who, by senselessly saying that He is created, will escape eternal torment?

Those who worship the Lord Who appeared in the flesh and was called Jesus, and who believe that He is the Son of God and that through Him the Father is known, plainly show what has been said. It was not the Word, insofar as He is Word, Who received such grace, that is, it was not the Word Who was exalted (Phil 2:9), but we who received it. For because of our kinship with His body, we too have become the temple of God and have already been made sons of God. Therefore the Lord is already worshiped in us, and those who look upon us proclaim, as the Apostle said, that “God is truly” with them (1 Cor 14:25). Likewise John says in the Gospel: “But as many as received Him, to them He gave authority to become children of God” (Jn 1:12).

Those who do His commandments are rewarded not only with God’s mercies and bounties. They acquire a far higher and priceless treasure. They become vessels of the grace of God and become one with the Lord: “He who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him.” This is accomplished through the Spirit given to us, who is the Spirit of love, or rather love itself. Whoever senses this love within himself should know that the Spirit of God lives in him. He abides in God, and God abides in him.

The assurance that God abides in us is sustained by those gifts, by that Spirit, which we receive from Him. From this the Apostle turns to the discernment of these spiritual gifts.

He who keeps these commandments of His just indicated, or even this one commandment, as the essence and fullness of all His commandments, abides in Him in his spirit, and He in him. This commandment is faith in God and in His Only-begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, together with the inseparably joined commandment of love for God and neighbors. Such a man abides in Him in complete inward moral union, a mystical union (1 Jn 3:6; Jn 2:6; Jn 1:3; Jn 14:17; Jn 15:7; Jn 17:21-23). “And that He abides in us,” and so forth. The unfailing sign, testimony, and assurance that God abides in us, by which we can know and recognize God abiding in us and His indwelling in us (Jn 14:26), is this.

In the closing verses of the chapter, the Apostle offers several considerations to explain the naturalness of that boldness of the sons of God of which he spoke above (1 Jn 3:22-24). When and why does this boldness become natural? “Because we keep His commandments” (1 Jn 3:22). And in what is the essence, or sum, of these commandments expressed? “And this is His commandment, that we should believe,” not with the mind only, but with heart and soul, “in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us commandment” (1 Jn 3:23). Meanwhile, it is precisely by this, by faith and love, that the children of God are chiefly distinguished. How, then, should they not have boldness before God, when they have such union with Him? For “he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him” (1 Jn 3:24).

Having spoken of the possibility of firm hope in God’s mercy according to the measure of keeping God’s commandments, the Apostle points first to the commandment of faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the promised Messiah. Then he points to the second commandment, love for one another, after the pattern of the love that Jesus Christ showed by His own example. All this had already been proclaimed more than once by John the Theologian. Therefore, in the repetition of these thoughts one may see a reminder of those essential duties which Christians must unfailingly observe, despite every deception and temptation. In the final words of this chapter, the Apostle John recalls the closest communion of believers with Christ and, through Him, with the Holy Spirit and the Father.

Blessed is he who keeps God’s commandments concerning faith and love. He abides in God, that is, he is in the closest communion with Him, and God abides in him. Jesus Christ teaches about this union with God through faith and active love: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him. We will come to him and make Our abode with him” (Jn 14:23). How can one be assured of this mysterious and closest union with God? Is it not only a dream and self-deception? It is difficult for an outsider to judge this. A man’s life in mysterious communion with God is a state known most closely to him himself through his own experience. What, then, does his own experience tell him?