Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God. And every one that loveth him who begot, loveth him also who is born of him.
πας ο πιστευων οτι ιησους εστιν ο χριστος εκ του θεου γεγεννηται και πας ο αγαπων τον γεννησαντα αγαπα και τον γεγεννημενον εξ αυτου
12 Church Fathers comment on this verse
This too is said in confirmation of what was stated above. If we have received from the Teacher the commandment to love one another, then without doubt, if we believe that our Teacher Jesus is the Christ, and that He is Christ as God and man together, we must also keep His commandments, as those of the Teacher and of God.
Everyone who loves the Begetter also loves the Begotten, while one who rejects the Begotten insults the Begetter.
Therefore, whoever loves the children of God also loves the Son of God, and whoever loves the Son of God also loves the Father. No one can love the Father unless he loves the Son, and whoever loves the Son also loves the children of God.
Again, when John says in the epistle, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God” (1 Jn 5:1), and so forth, he shows that he knows one and the same Christ. To Him the gates of heaven were opened when He ascended with the flesh. In that same flesh in which He bore His sufferings, He will come again to reveal the glory of the Father.
By practicing the virtues, we become born of God, and become His children and friends, like Abraham. Again John touches on the doctrine of truth, destroying the impiety of the heretics to its foundations.
John immediately joined love with faith, because without love faith is vain. If they act according to love, this is the faith of Christians. Without love, it is the faith of demons. But those who do not believe are worse than demons.
The words offered by St. John the Theologian serve as an explanation of the words disclosed at the end of the preceding homily: “And this commandment we have from Him, that he who loves God should love his brother also” (1 Jn 4:21).
Showing the close connection between love for God and love for neighbor, the Apostle says: “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves Him Who begot loves also him who is begotten of Him.”
“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.” The holy Theologian means living and active faith, or saving faith, proper to Christians who have already been regenerated by the grace of the Holy Spirit.
Everyone who truly believes, and through faith receives and holds with mind and heart the teaching that Jesus is the promised Anointed One, the Christ and Savior of the human race, everyone who nourishes such living assurance within himself, has been born of God.
By the grace of the Holy Spirit he has been adopted by God, and is a son of God.
Everyone who truly believes in Jesus as the promised Savior and Christ shows by his faith that saving grace is active in him, and that he has received, according to the Apostle’s word, the Spirit of sonship, or adoption (Rom 8:15).
Of this adoption St. John says in the Gospel: to those who received Him, to those who believe in His name, He gave power to become children of God. Likewise the Apostle Paul writes: no one can call Jesus Lord except by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:3).
The Apostle’s words show that man can truly know and confess Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as Savior and Lord only through the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, through regeneration by the Holy Spirit.
Whoever has not yet received the grace of regeneration and adoption by God cannot truly believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He cannot worthily confess Him as the promised Savior of men, the Only-begotten Son of God Who came into the world.
“Everyone who loves Him Who begot loves also him who is begotten of Him.” These words show whom the Apostle means by the believer whom he calls born of the Father.
He ascribes to him living love for the One Who begot, that is, for God, Who regenerated him by grace through the power of His Spirit. He also ascribes to him love for those regenerated, or the children of God, that is, those who believe in Jesus Christ.
“He who loves Him Who begot loves also him who is begotten of Him.” This order of relationships, known in natural life, the Apostle also indicates in the life of grace as a law for the sons of God regenerated by grace.
This accords with what he said above: “And this commandment we have from Him, that he who loves God should love his brother also” (1 Jn 4:21).
“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.” The Apostle placed in close connection with the teaching on love for neighbors the confession, or acknowledgment, of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and regarded this as a sign of the true children of God.
Now the Apostle expresses the same thought more particularly, directing it against the false teachers of his time. He says that only those who acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, are children of God.
So also it is said in the Gospel: “As many as received Him, to them He gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in His name” (Jn 1:1, 12).
Speaking of love for the children of God, the Apostle does not thereby confine love for neighbors to the narrow circle of believers. For he himself presents even hatred toward anyone whatsoever as a most grievous sin, murder.
But by this he indicates, as it were, that the children of God are most worthy of our love. Or still more, what is most worthy of love in men is their faith in God, their love for Him, and their fulfillment of His commandments.
The Apostle also wants to say that if lack of love appears among believers in Christ, among the children of God, as of course was permitted and stirred up by false teachers, then what should be expected from them toward unbelievers and those who war against Christians?
Mutual lack of love plainly destroyed the chief sign of Christ’s disciples: “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35).
These verses serve as an explanation or development of the preceding verse and are therefore closely connected with it. There the apostle spoke briefly and expressively about love for God and neighbors. Here he indicates the grounds for this.
Since God and believers are so closely united inwardly and morally with one another, it necessarily follows that one cannot truly love God without loving one’s neighbor. Nor can one truly love one’s neighbor without loving God.
Everyone who believes with an upright and pure heart, and confesses such faith with his mouth and whole life (cf. Rom 10:9), that Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary, is the Christ, the promised Savior and Redeemer of the world, and the true Son of God (1 Jn 4:15; 1 Jn 2:22; 1 Jn 4:2-3), everyone who believes thus has been born of God (Jn 1:13; 1 Jn 2:29; 1 Jn 3:9).
That is, he has been regenerated by grace, so that he has become a true child of God (1 Jn 3:1; 1 Jn 2:21 and note). Thus in birth from God lie the foundation and source of faith, and only the children of God can be believers in the Son of God.
Faith in Christ and sonship to God are correlative concepts and identical in their correlation. One cannot believe in Christ as the true Son of God and Savior of the world, and confess Him, without being regenerated by God through the Holy Spirit and without being a child of God.
Nor can one truly be born, or regenerated, of God and not believe and confess Jesus as the Christ, the true Son of God.
“If we have received from the Teacher the commandment to love one another, then without doubt, if we believe that our Teacher Jesus is the Christ, and that He is Christ in the sense that He is God and at the same time man, we must also keep His commandments, as Teacher and as God.
And believing that He is God, we receive the name of His children, as is also said in the Gospel (Jn 1:12)” (Theophylact).
Everyone who has such living and firm faith in Christ Jesus necessarily includes in his consciousness this proposition: he who loves the One Who begot, that is, God, the common heavenly Father of all, also loves with active and strong love the one begotten of Him.
This means his fellow brother according to spiritual birth, or regeneration. Thus, in his consciousness and by the very essence of the matter, love for God and love for neighbor are inseparable in regeneration.
He who loves God cannot fail to love his neighbor. He who loves his neighbor cannot fail to love God. The inner bond uniting them is sonship to God.
“If we have been born of Him, then without doubt we must render what is due to the Parent, that is, love the One Who begot. And if all of us who have believed have been born of Him, then we must love one another both as brothers and as those born of Him” (Theophylact).
This lofty truth the apostle persistently affirms and explains in different combinations throughout his epistle, and with different shades of thought, as here in the expression under consideration.
This continues the thought concerning love for one's neighbor: it has an inward connection with rebirth from the Heavenly Father (1 Jn 5:1-5).
"Everyone who loves Him who begot," and this, according to the Apostle, is "everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ," also loves "him who is begotten of Him" (1 Jn 5:1). That is, he loves every brother of his by rebirth.
Besides this natural feeling of love for our fellow brethren by rebirth, there is also a positive commandment of the Heavenly Father concerning the same thing. The Apostle says that we prove our love for Him only when we keep His commandments. This therefore includes the commandment to love our fellow brethren.
Continuing to unfold his teaching on the closest bond between love for God and love for people, the Apostle points to our birth from God. Through it we enter into filial relation with God and mutually enter a brotherly, familial union.
In this union both the Father and all His children must be dear and beloved to us. They are our brothers, all reborn as we are, and therefore all, like us, have partaken of His being, that is, of love. For according to John's teaching, the being of God consists in love.
As God and people are mutually bound by the essence or nature of love, so too they are united in love's manifestation. Therefore whoever loves God also loves those beloved by Him.
Thus love for God allows one to judge love for people as well. For those who love God keep His commandments, and the keeping of all His commandments is concentrated in love. Its greatest and most evident manifestation lies in love for neighbors.
In the two preceding verses the foundation of love for one’s neighbor was shown to be that the neighbor is the visible bearer of the image of the invisible God. It was also shown in the clear Old and New Testament commandment concerning love for neighbor, inseparable from love for God.
In the verse now under consideration, a new foundation is indicated for fulfilling the duty to love one’s neighbor: faith in Christ the Redeemer. Whoever has this faith has been born of God.
Through baptism, which is spiritual birth, the believer in Christ becomes akin to Him and, through Him, to God the Father. He becomes His child by grace, and therefore a brother of the other believers in Christ, having with them a common Father.
But it belongs to brothers by nature itself to love one another, because they have come from one father. In like manner, it belongs to believers in Christ, as those born of God the Father, to love His children as their own brothers.
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 24 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS