1 Jn 5:1-8
Every one who believes, etc. He who believes with a living faith, which extends to charity and works through love, that Jesus is the Christ or Messiah, is born of God or elevated to adoptive sonship, by which man becomes not only a friend but also a partaker of the divine nature, as St. Peter said (2 Peter 1:4). And every one who loves him who begot, loves him also who is born of him. Or, he who loves God the Father of all must also love the children begotten by Him, that is, the faithful, who, being children of God the Father, are also our brothers. By this we know, or make it known, that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments. For if we fulfill God's precepts, we shall love our neighbor, because this is one of the divine commandments; and from this it will be established that God loves us. Therefore, do not doubt that as far as you have receded from the love of your neighbor, so far have you departed from the love of God. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous. The love of God consists in observing His precepts, which indeed are not grievous to the one who loves, but very light, according to that: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matt 11:30). For it is a law of grace and love. Nothing is difficult, nothing heavy to the lover. For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world. The children of God, or true Christians, easily overcome the lusts of the world which oppose charity and make the yoke of God's commandments heavy. And indeed, this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith, not naked faith but ornamented with acts of charity. Who is he that overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? For by believing he hopes, by hoping he invokes, by invoking he receives virtue by which, strengthened, he conquers the world. This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, or the Messiah, who came into the world to redeem men by his blood and to cleanse them by the water of Baptism; not by water only, but by water and blood. It would not have satisfied his charity to wash us with water unless he had added the laver of blood. He would not consider himself a true lover unless he suffered for the beloved. He teaches us that for the washing away of crimes we must use water and blood, that is, to the flow of tears must be added the harshness of fasting, the scourge, and hairshirts. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because Christ is spirit, or the Holy Spirit testified while Christ lived through miracles, and after his death and resurrection through his descent into the Apostles and their preaching, that Christ is the truth. There are three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. All three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity in heaven, from heaven, bear witness to Angels and especially to men about Christ, that He is the true Messiah and Son of God. The Father proclaimed at Baptism and Transfiguration: "This is my beloved Son" (Matt 3:17 & 17:5). The Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove. The Son, however, who often said and proved with signs that He is the Messiah. Certainly, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one in nature, essence, and divinity. And there are three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood. Just as the first three from heaven proclaim a miraculous testimony about Christ to men acting on earth, another created trinity of witnesses gives testimony about Christ that He is God and the Son of God. These indeed are the spirit which Christ emitted on the cross crying out with miraculous strength of voice, so that the centurion seeing that he so cried out and expired, said: "Truly this was the Son of God" (Matt 27:54). The water and blood which flowed from the side of Jesus showed Him to be true God and man; and these three agree in one, or conspire into the same testimony, proving Christ to be true God and true man.
1 Jn 5:9-15
If we receive the testimony of men, etc. If we accept the testimony of men and give it credence, the testimony of God is greater in dignity and certainty, and therefore we ought much more to apply faith to it. Because this is the testimony of God which is greater, because he has testified of his Son, confirming His divinity. He who believes in the Son of God has the testimony of God in himself, or he has in himself through faith this truth testified by God, namely that Christ is the Son. He who does not believe the Son makes him a liar, or the Father who has borne witness of him, because he does not believe in the testimony which God has testified of his Son, as if it were alien from the truth. And this is the testimony, that God has given us eternal life. This is part of the divine testimony already mentioned. For God testifies consequently that He has given eternal life in us, since He is our redeemer and savior. And this life is in his Son, or through faith in the Son we are to be endowed by God with this life. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. He who has Christ through faith, love, and obedience possesses the life of grace in reality and of glory in hope, from which he is entirely alien who departs from Christ through unbelief or sin. These things I write to you that you may know that you have eternal life, in hope indeed, who believe in the name of the Son of God, or in the Son of God. That you may recognize the power of the name of Jesus, which is taken for the person of Christ Himself and seems to operate as if a person. Whence Luke says: "His name was called Jesus," as if the name itself received a name in the manner of a person. And this is the confidence which we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. But we conceive this confidence through faith, that whatever we ask of God, provided it be conformable to His will and law, will never fail if our supplication is subjected to God's will. For even when that is denied which you postulate, it is certain that it is better for you not to receive what you have asked.
1 Jn 5:16-21
And we know that he hears us, etc. We believe this to be certain, that our prayers are heard by God, and whatever we have asked, we know that we have the petitions which we desired of him, or we know that we always receive whatever we postulate, because we submit the effect to His will. And when we desire God's will to be done, even when He denies our prayers, He grants [our true desire]. If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. I said that he who believes in Christ obtains all things by prayers; I except the sin of a neighbor unto death, for the expiation of which, if anyone prays, I do not dare to give a certain hope of obtaining. For by sin unto death I understand any very grave sin which, on account of its enormity, habit, obstinacy, and malice, according to the common law through the grace which God usually gives ordinarily, is as it were incurable. The Apostle seems to speak particularly of apostasy from the faith of Christ into which someone falls and wishes to remain in it even unto death. Therefore, it is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not unto death, or there is another species of sin not unto death. As if to say: There are two species of sins, one is unto death, the other is not. For iniquity [in Greek adikia], that is injustice, is a grave sin but not unto death. We know that whosoever is born of God does not sin; but he that is begotten of God keeps himself, or the grace received through divine generation, by which he is made an adoptive son of God, and the wicked one touches him not. We know that we are of God, or regenerated by God through Baptism, and the whole world lies in wickedness, or abounds in malice. And we know that the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding, or illumination of the mind, that we may know the true God, and may be in his true Son through faith, grace, and charity. This is the true God, and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
CONTINUE
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