1See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God! For this cause the world doesn’t know us, because it didn’t know him. 2Beloved, now we are children of God. It is not yet revealed what we will be; but we know that when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him just as he is. 3Everyone who has this hope set on him purifies himself, even as he is pure.
4Everyone who sins also commits lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. 5You know that he was revealed to take away our sins, and no sin is in him. 6Whoever remains in him doesn’t sin. Whoever sins hasn’t seen him and doesn’t know him.
7Little children, let no one lead you astray. He who does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. 8He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. To this end the Son of God was revealed: that he might destroy the works of the devil. 9Whoever is born of God doesn’t commit sin, because his seed remains in him, and he can’t sin, because he is born of God. 10In this the children of God are revealed, and the children of the devil. Whoever doesn’t do righteousness is not of God, neither is he who doesn’t love his brother. 11For this is the message which you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another— 12unlike Cain, who was of the evil one and killed his brother. Why did he kill him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s righteous.
13Don’t be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. 14We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. He who doesn’t love his brother remains in death. 15Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.
16By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17But whoever has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, then closes his heart of compassion against him, how does God’s love remain in him?
18My little children, let’s not love in word only, or with the tongue only, but in deed and truth. 19And by this we know that we are of the truth and persuade our hearts before him, 20because if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. 21Beloved, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have boldness toward God; 22so whatever we ask, we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight. 23This is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, even as he commanded. 24He who keeps his commandments remains in him, and he in him. By this we know that he remains in us, by the Spirit which he gave us.
John’s use of “we” here includes himself. He now states something every believer should know. The term for “know” (οἴδαμεν) John uses here refers to knowledge from instruction, not experience. This is something we can know based on God’s Word, not our experience.
What every believer can know is that we are no longer spiritually dead, because we have “passed” out from that realm into God’s realm of life. We are no longer in it. Our realm of existence is life, God’s life, not death. John uses the perfect tense verb, have passed (μεταβεβήκαμεν), to communicate the idea that the passing occurred in the past and has effects that continue to the present. John and his readers could know they were spiritually alive.
One’s love of other Christians, “love the brothers,” serves as evidence of spiritual life. It does not cause it, but reveals it. Thus, how we treat other Christians can be a source of assurance of salvation, though it does not result in salvation.
The second statement of this verse poses difficulties that are clarified by the key term, translated as “remains” (μένει). Jesus used this term extensively in the Upper Room (John 15), and John uses it with the same nuance of meaning in his epistle. The Greek term means to “remain” or “abide.” Here, “abide” communicates the concept better. It is equivalent to “walking” in light or darkness. John is speaking of the experience of a Christian. Not loving one’s Christian brother required that the person be a Christian as well. Thus, “death” in this verse cannot refer to spiritual death, but to the realm of death. The Christian who fails to love another Christian is “abiding” in the realm of death rather than life. The eternal life he possesses is not being experienced or expressed in his treatment of the other Christian. That person is not dead spiritually, just living like it.