As we have seen, Life, according to the Johannine conception, is the essence or animating principle that underlies the whole phenomena of conscious Christian experience, and cannot itself be the object of direct consciousness.  Its possession is a matter of inference, its presence certified only by its appropriate effects.  It may be tested simply as life, by the evidence of those functions - growth, assimilation, and reproduction - which are characteristic of every kind of vital energy.

    Or it may be tested generically, by its properties, as the kind of tree is known by the kind of its fruit.  The Epistle adopts exclusively the latter method.  It bids its readers try themselves, not as to the fulness and fruitfulness of their spiritual life, but as to their exhibiting those qualities which belong essentially to the Life of God.  God is righteous, therefore whosoever has the Divine Life in him doeth righteousness.  God is Love, therefore His life in men exhibits itself in love.  God is conscious of Himself in His only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, therefore His life is manifested in men by their Belief, - their perception of the Divine in Jesus.

    But God is not only Life, He is Light; and fellowship with Him is not only essential participation in the Divine Life; it is also conscious and ethical - "walking in the Light, as He is in the Light" (1⁷).  It is this thought of "walking in the Light" that governs the first Cycle of the Epistle as a whole;¹ and it is from this point of view that the three cardinal tests - Righteousness, Love, Belief - are applied in it.

    This paragraph stands in intimate relation to that which immediately precedes (1⁷-2²).²  There the same test has been applied negatively.  We have been brought under the searchlight of God's righteousness, and it has been seen that the first effect of honest submission to this self-revelation is the confession of sin.  Now follows the positive application.  Though the immediate effect of the light is to expose sin, its primary purpose is to reveal duty.  The confession of sin must not be regarded as an equivalent for actual well-doing (Ps. 119⁴, Matt. 7^21,24).  To have fellowship with God, we must not only acknowledge what the light reveals as true; we must realise in action what it reveals as right.

    "And hereby we perceive that we know³ Him (God),⁴ if we keep His commandments.

    "He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.  But whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God perfected.

    "Hereby perceive we that we are in Him.  He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked."⁵

    The paragraph contains a threefold statement both of the matter to be tested and of the test appropriate to it, and of both on an ascending scale.
 

    The proof of this "knowing" God is active sympathy with His will, - keeping His commandments. The word translated "keep" (threi/n) expresses the idea of watchful, observant obedience.  It is habitually used, for example, of seamen who carefully observe the direction of the winds or ocean-currents and shape their course accordingly.  So ought we to keep a heedful eye on God's commandments.  The word "commandments" (evntolai,), again, emphasises the idea of surrender to moral authority.  The "commandments" are the clear, precise orders that God has laid down, dealing with conduct in detail, peremptory as military instructions.  And although much more than this is included in the Christian idea of righteousness, yet with profound wisdom is this made the first test - that we make conscience of keeping God's commandments.  Other services and tributes may express more vividly the spontaneous impulses of the soul; but with these it is always possible that something of self-pleasing and self-display may mingle.  In vain do we break the alabaster box, if we do not obey.  Zeal that is not zeal for keeping God's commandments is but egotism subtly disguised.  On the other hand, "To know that I know God, I need not aspire to mystic insight, or visionary rapture, or sublime ecstasy.  A lowlier path by far is mine" (Candlish).

    For "Whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God perfected."  Here the unity of the "word" is substituted for the multiplicity of the "commandments."  The Christian commandments are not a miscellany of arbitrary requirements or by-laws; they are practical applications of the one Divine Law to the outstanding facts and situations of human life.  Though many, they are one in principle and authority - outgrowths from one root; so Christian Righteousness also, though manifested in numberless details, is a moral unity.  It is to do the will of God - the revelation of which is His "word" (cf. Jas. 2¹⁰).

    The apodosis of the sentence, instead of taking the anticipated form, "This man verily knoweth God," introduces a characteristic variation and enrichment of thought. "In him verily is the love⁷ of God perfected."  Here the "love of God" is usually understood as our love to God, not God's love to us.  And plainly it must be taken in such a sense as to indicate a right moral state in us.  But, interpreted in the light of the parallel passage 4¹⁷ (where we find simply h` avga,ph, "the Love "), the "Love of God" is neither God's love to us nor ours to Him, separately considered, but that which unites both in one common conception, - the Love which is the nature of God (4⁸), and which is the nature also of those who are "begotten of Him" (4⁷).  That this Divine Love dwells in any man is witnessed by the fact that he keeps God's "word."  For God's "word" is nothing else than the revelation in Christ of the Divine character and will as Love, and to keep that "word" is nothing else than to embody that Divine character and will in human deed.  And in this it is "perfected."  "Perfected" love, in the phraseology of the Epistle, signifies, not love in a superlative degree, but love that is consummated in action.  Bearing fruit in actual obedience, Love has been perfected: it has fulfilled its mission, has reached its goal.

    "Hereby perceive we that we are in Him.  He that saith that he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He⁸ walked."  Here, again, the thought is restated in varied form.  Instead of "knowing God," we have "being in Him" (2^5b) and "abiding in Him" (2⁶) as expressing the fact of fellowship with God.  These expressions are synonymous, denoting from the human side the reciprocal indwelling of God and man, which is for St. John the deepest underlying fact of the Christian life.  The fact is indicated more generally by the phrase "to be in Him" (cf. 5²⁰); while the "abiding" in Him may emphasise the element of persistent purpose that is necessary on man's part to continuance in union with⁹ God.  From the union of nature there springs an ethical union of will; and of this the test is that we "walk even as Christ walked."¹⁰  We cannot observe without admiration the exquisite out-blossoming of the thought.  As the "commandments" find their ideal unity in the "word," the "word" finds its actual embodiment in Him who wrought

"With human hands, the creed of creeds,
In loveliness of perfect deeds,
More strong than all poetic thought."

    This paragraph as a whole, if the structure of the Epistle has been rightly apprehended, is governed by the thought of "walking in the Light."  If we keep not God's commandments, if we keep not His word, if we do not walk as Christ walked, we forsake the path of Light and enter the region of darkness.  The necessity of Righteousness is grounded on the requirements of fellowship with God, "Who is Light, and in Whom there is no darkness at all."

    In the second Cycle of the Epistle the test of Righteousness is differently presented.  It assumes more distinctly the character of a direct polemic against Gnostic Antinomianism; and its necessity is found not in the revelation of God's Will, but in the Divine nature itself.  Through the whole paragraph devoted to the subject there runs the idea, not of Light, but of Life.  It is an exposition not of the conditions of ethical fellowship with God, but of the evidence of the Divine Begetting.

    If ye know (as absolute truth) that He (God) is righteous, know (take note) that every one also that doeth righteousness is begotten of Him" (2²⁹).

    This, the opening sentence of the paragraph, announces the purport of the whole.  It introduces (for the first time in the Epistle) the subject of the Divine Begetting, and indicates that this is to be expounded in all the rigour of its ethical demands.  The Divine nature, to whomsoever it is imparted, is Righteousness; therefore the test of possessing it is doing Righteousness.

    Having thus stated his thesis, the Apostle is immediately swept away into rapturous digression.  The full magnificence of the thought that sinful men should be brought into such a relation to God smites his soul with amazement:  "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us!" (3^1,2).¹¹  But though these verses to a certain extent interrupt the sequence of thought, they lead off into no side-issue.  Like the eagle, the Apostle has soared to the heights, only that he may with mightier impetus swoop down upon his quarry.  We have been led to contemplate the Christian life in the glory of its future consummation, only to be brought back once more to the test:  "Every one that hath this hope in Him purifieth¹² himself, even as He is pure" (3³).  This sentence, again, is not hortatory but predicative.  It is the statement not of a duty, but of a fact.  The hope of perfect likeness to Christ's glory hereafter is not held out as a motive to strive after present likeness to His purity; but, conversely, to strive after His purity is the inexorable test of having the hope of His glory.  Thus "hope" must be taken here in an objective, not a subjective, sense.  Not every one who cherishes the hope of glory, seeks the life of purity; but he alone¹³ who aims at the absolute purity of Christ (kaqw.j evkei/noj) and can be satisfied with no lower aim, possesses it in fact.  He alone has in him that Life which will blossom out in immortal perfection when it is brought into the full sunshine of Christ's manifested presence.  This is involved in the unity of the Eternal Life here and hereafter.  And were one to argue¹⁴ that it is idle (so different are the conditions of the future from those of the present) to aim at the purity of Heaven while here on earth, the answer is that the Life which is begotten of God is by innate necessity, and in whatever environment, a life of truceless antagonism to sin.  This the writer proceeds to maintain: (1) in the light of what Sin is; (2) in the light of Christ's character and mission; (3) in the light of the Divine origin of the Christian Life; (4), in the light of the fact that all that is of the nature of sin is of diabolic origin.

    "Every one that doeth¹⁵ sin doeth also lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness."¹⁶  It is noticeable that this verse exactly corresponds in thought as well as in position to 2^3,4.  As there Righteousness was exhibited first of all as the " keeping of God's commandments," so here Sin is, first of all, repudiation of the whole authority and aim of God's moral government.  This is expressed with singular emphasis.  Sin, in its constitutive principle (h` a`marti,a), whatever be the act in which the principle is embodied, is essentially lawlessness (h` avnomi,a), no matter what be the form in which the Law is delivered.  It is to set up, as the rule of life, one's own will instead of the absolutely good will of God.  The inference does not require to be explicitly drawn, that to do so stands in fundamental contradiction to the Life that is begotten of God.  But this argument against moral indifferentism, - that every act of sin is the assertion of a lawless will and a defiance of moral authority - while it is a truth that lies at the basis of Christianity, is not the specifically Christian expression of that truth.  This the Apostle next gives.  Indifference to sin, in whatever degree, on whatever pretext, is the direct negation of the whole purpose of Christ's mission and the whole significance of Christ's character.¹⁷

    "And ye know that He was manifested to the end that He might take away¹⁸ sins; and sin in Him there is not."  He "was manifested."  The Being and Work of Christ are the manifestation of the Eternal in the sphere of history, of the Unseen Divine Life in the world of our humanity.  And the whole Being and Work of the Incarnate Word - word and deed, influence and example, action and suffering, life and death - are directed to this one end, the taking away of sins.  It was for this purpose that He was manifested at all, and by this purpose that His manifestation was governed throughout.  "And in Him is no sin."  The sinlessness of Christ is one of the intuitions of the Christian.  It is not, in the nature of the case, capable of complete logical demonstration; but we know that in Him is¹⁹ no sin.  Sin is altogether excluded from the sphere of what He was, and is, and is to be.

    The inevitable conclusion from these premises is the "inadmissibility²⁰ of sin."

    "Every one that abideth in Him sinneth not; every one that sinneth hath not seen Him, neither knoweth Him."  The impossibility of maintaining at the same time the same kind of connection with Christ and with sin is immediately evident.  Any other attitude towards sin than that of absolute repudiation and self-denial is fatal disproof of our living union with Him, and, indeed, of our ever having had the faintest perception of what Christ is, and of what He stands for.  But here the Apostle s words seem to assert much more than this; - not only the inadmissibility in principle, but the non-existence in fact, of sin in the regenerate life.  This assertion, which constitutes one of the crucial difficulties in the exposition of the Epistle, recurs in 3⁹; and we shall place ourselves in a more advantageous position for examining the problem by first completing the survey of the whole paragraph.

    "Little children, let no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous."  Here, for the first time, the polemical import of the whole passage is clearly disclosed, and the clue is given that leads to the solution of its difficulties.  The point of prime importance is that we now discover the precise significance of the phrase o` poiw.n ("whosoever doeth"), which is so characteristic of the paragraph (2²⁹, 3^4,7-10).  When it is said, "Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous," and when the same warning is continued in the words, "He that doeth sin is of the devil" (3⁸), the implication clearly is that there were persons who taught the contrary doctrine, namely, that one may be truly righteous apart from the doing of righteous deeds, and that, on the other hand, the mere doing of sinful acts is no disproof of inward spirituality, nor incompatible with the status of Divine sonship.  It is evident that the same persons who held that there is an essential righteousness which is superior to the "doing" of righteous deeds would also hold that there may be a "doing" of sin that does not imply essential depravity in the agent.  These are inseparable aspects of the same doctrine.

    Thus the point of the argument is missed when poiei/n th.n a`marti,an (and, mutatis mutandis, poiei/n th.n dikaiosu,nhn) is taken as signifying to sin habitually, to live a sinful life.²¹  It is not the frequency or the unbroken habitualness of the "doing" that is in view, but the fact that Being is to be tested and known by Doing, the inward spiritual nature by the outward conduct which is its product.  The object of attack is the Gnostic Antinomian, to whom, in his proud intellectualism or his overstrained spiritualism, the prosaic requirements of common morality were of small moment.  It is true that the tendency to exempt religious claims from moral tests is not confined to any heretical sect.  "We are too often content with the consciousness that we stand in some special relation to the Lord, and come to regard sin as an unavoidable evil which is not so very harmful as might be thought" (Haupt).  This is the ubiquitous and inextinguishable heresy.  But it was not this universal tendency that gave occasion to the pointed, tremulously affectionate appeal, "Little children, let no man lead you astray."  Doing is the test of Being: - " He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous."  This was and is the manner of Christ's righteousness.  Immeasurable in its perfection, it was and is wholly translatable and translated into deed.  In Him the outward life is wholly commensurate with the inward.  And in vain do men prate of union with the True Vine if they do not in like manner bring forth fruit.

    "He²² that doeth sin is of the devil; because from the beginning the devil sinneth.  To this end was the Son of God manifested, that He may destroy the works of the devil."

    The proof already advanced of the incompatibility of sin with the life of the children of God, first from its own nature (3⁴), then from the character of Christ and the purpose of His mission (3^5,6), is reinforced by the further consideration, that the source from which all that is of the nature of sin is derived is not uncertain.  And we cannot but recognise an intentionally terrific force in the point to which the Apostle here brings matters.  He who self-tolerantly commits sin can have no kinship with Christ.  But what then?  He is not without spiritual kinship.  He has a spiritual father the Devil who "sinneth from the beginning."  And "to this end," the Apostle adds, "was the Son of God manifested, that He might destroy the works of the Devil."  With pregnant force the majestic title "the Son of God" (used for the first time in the Epistle) marks the true character of the works of the Devil.  "Judge ye what they are," the Apostle would say.  "It was no other than the Son of God whose task it was to destroy them.  So abhorrent to God are the works of the Devil that it was worth His while, yea, He was necessitated by His own Holiness and Love, to send even His own Son into the deadly fight for their complete undoing."

    "Whosoever²³ is begotten of God doeth not sin; because His seed abideth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is begotten of God."  The Apostle advances the fourth and last proof of the unqualified antagonism to sin that is inherent in the life of the children of God.  As the seed of physical generation stamps upon the offspring an ineffaceable character, and nothing in after years can alter the inherited basis of life, so does the germ of spiritual life from the spiritual Father set the impress of a permanent organic character upon the God-begotten.  On this the Apostle finally grounds the certainty that the Christian Life, in its inmost eternal essence (spe,rma auvtou/), is a life of perfect righteousness; that is, under present conditions, a life of continual opposition to sin, and victory over it.

    "In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God."  In our " doing" and also in our "not doing" the spiritual affinities, which are in their essence secret, become manifest - manifest, that is, to all men of spiritual discernment (cf. Matt. 7²⁰, Gal. 5^19-23).  With the solemn words, "Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God," the argument concludes.  The end of the paragraph reverts to and logically completes the assertion with which it began.  That assertion was:  "Every one that doeth righteousness²⁴ is begotten of God"; here the complementary negative is set forth, "Every one that doeth not righteousness²⁴ is not of God" (2²⁹).  The test of righteousness is enforced on every side.  No gap is left in the circle drawn around the "begotten of God."  All who do righteousness are included; all who do not are excluded.

    The writer has thus, with four-fold argument, enforced the truth that the life of Divine sonship is a life that necessarily expresses itself in righteousness and in irreconcilable antagonism to sin; and, further, that there can be no righteousness apart from right-doing, and, conversely, no evil-doing apart from the principle of sin, which has its arch-embodiment in the Devil.  It must be admitted, however, that the manner in which this truth is presented is fitted rather to puzzle the exegete than to edify the reader.  By an apparently overstrained identification of persons with the principles they represent, and by neglect of the fact that there is in human nature, as it actually exists, a commixture of incongruous elements, the writer seems to spurn the solid ground of experience and to soar into a region of mere abstract dialectic.  Had he asserted in the strongest terms the impossibility of maintaining the same kind of relation to Christ and to sin, - that to believe in Christ and to believe in sin, to love Christ and to love sin, to live in Christ and to live in sin as one's element, is as unthinkable as that one should face North and South at the same moment, - to this every Christian heart would instantly respond.  But when he says: - "Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither knoweth Him" (3⁶); "Whosoever is begotten of God doeth not sin; because His seed abideth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is begotten of God" (3⁹); and, again, "We know that whosoever is begotten of God sinneth not" (5¹⁸), - he seems to contradict not only the universal testimony of the Christian conscience (which much rather assents to Luther's paradox, "He who is a Christian is no Christian") and the general doctrine of Scripture, but his own explicit teaching.  Has he not said, "These things I write unto you that ye sin not" (2¹), thereby recognising the possibility of what he declares impossible?  Has he not set forth, in view of that possibility, the Divine provision for it, "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father" (2¹)?  Does he not expressly contemplate the contingency of our seeing "a brother sinning a sin not unto death" and prescribe the course to be followed in that event (5¹⁶)?  Undesirable, therefore, as it is, even for the sake of vindicating a writer's self-consistency, to seek another meaning for plain words than they carry on their face, the inconsistency here is of such a nature that we are compelled to look for some interpretation by which the discord may be resolved.

    We return, therefore, to the consideration of 3⁶ "Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither knoweth Him."  Attempts to untie the knot have been made from many sides.  (a) A solution is sought in the Apostle's "idealism" (Candlish, Weiss).  As to St. Paul, all Christian believers, notwithstanding their abundant imperfections, are saints, klhtoi. a[gioi; so to St. John every genuine Christian, regarded in the light of his divinely-begotten nature, "sinneth not."  This in no way meets the requirements of the passage.  The writer's purpose is not to exhibit an ideal, but to apply a test; and it is precisely against the dangers of a false or vague idealism that his argument is directed.(v. supra on 3⁷)  (b) Help has been sought in the word me,nei. When the Christian sins, he is not, for the moment, abiding in Christ. "In quantum in Christo manet in tantum non peccat" (Augustine and Bede, quoted and adopted by Westcott).  But, even if this were a satisfactory explanation of the first clause (which it is not), it is unavailing with respect to the second, "Whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither knoweth Him."  (c) The verse refers to mortal sin.  But any distinction between mortal and venial sins is resolutely debarred by the context, the argument of which is that every sin, of whatever description or degree, is "lawlessness" (34).  (d) a`marta,nei is explained as meaning a life of unbroken and impenitent sin - following sin "as a calling" (Stevens, Gibbon).  But this only empties the word of its proper meaning: a`marta,nein in 3⁶, cannot be other than synonymous with poiei/n th.n a`marti,an in 3<sup>8</sup>; and this (v. supra on 3<sup>7</sup>) connotes not the frequency or other characteristic of the sinning, but its simple actuality.  (e)  Finally, a solution is most commonly sought on the lines of Rom. 7<sup>20</sup>.<sup>25</sup>  "A Christian does not do sin, he suffers it" (Besser).  "It is no longer sin, but opposition to it, that determines his conduct of life" (Huther).  "Etsi infirmitate labitur, peccato tamen non consentit, quia potius gemendo luctatur" (Augustine).  Here, however, the Apostle is not distinguishing between a man and his deeds; on the contrary, he is in the most rigorous fashion identifying them (pa/j o` poiw/n, 3^4,7-10).  With Rom. 7²⁰, as a contrite acknowledgment of sinful weakness, St. John might have had no quarrel.  But it is against that text abused - made an apology for sin, and a pretext for moral indifferentism - that the concentrated fire of his artillery is directed.

    I venture to suggest that a more satisfactory explanation of this perplexing passage is to be found in the obvious fact that it is written in view of a definite controversial situation and in a vehemently controversial strain, the absoluteness of its assertions being due to the fact that they are in reality unqualified contradictions of tenets of unqualified falsity.  The polemical reference which underlies the whole paragraph becomes explicit in 3^7-8: - " Little children, let no man lead you astray.  He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous.  He that doeth sin is of the devil."  Clearly, as we have seen, this is aimed against a pseudo-spiritualism for which mere conduct was of minor concern; and here, if anywhere, we get the desired clue.  Let it be supposed that the Apostle and his readers were familiar with a class of teachers who maintained that true righteousness is entirely of the spirit, while doing, whether of righteousness or of sin, has its sphere solely in the flesh, and that, therefore, the truly spiritual man is no more affected by the deeds of the flesh than are the sunbeams by the purity or the filth on which they shine; let it be supposed that it is against such a doctrine, disseminating itself like a plague, that the passage is directed, and its apparent exaggeration and over-emphasis are naturally accounted for. Suppose that it were maintained that one may commit outward sins without injury to his spiritual connection with Christ, the reply would naturally be the strongest possible assertion that the very proof of any one's connection with Christ is his not sinning, - "Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not."  Suppose that it were affirmed that the man whose spirit is occupied with the inward vision and knowledge of Christ need not lose his equanimity over such trivial and transient phenomena as his deeds of sin, the fitting reply would be, that such an one has not the faintest apprehension of what Christ and Christianity stand for (3^6b); that, indeed, his real affinities are with the Devil.  I have put the case as a supposition; but there is abundant evidence²⁶ that such tenets and practices were characteristic of Gnosticism in both its earlier and its later developments; they were, indeed, the inevitable offspring of its fundamental principle of dualism.  And it is from this quarter, I submit, that an explanation of the Apostle's language in this verse is to be found.  It is the language not of calm and measured statement, but of vehement polemic.

    The same explanation holds good for the equally unqualified dictum of 3⁹: "Whosoever is begotten of God doeth not sin, because His seed abideth in him; and he cannot sin, because he is begotten of God."  He in whom a seed of Divine Life thus abides and determines development not only does not do sin, he does not because he cannot.  To him it is as impossible as it is, say, for the embryonic bird to acquire the habits of a serpent.  Theoretically this is true.  It was true of Christ; and if in our case the Divine Begetting were not a re-begetting, if there were no other element than the seed of God present in our nature, - no "old man" to put off, but only the "new man" to put on, - this would be actually true of us also.  As the case stands, nothing is more certain to the consciousness of those who are "begotten of God" than that, while they ought to be incapable of sin, they both can and do sin.

    An outlet from the impasse is usually sought in the explanation that the regenerate element in the regenerate man is sinless, and that the Christian is here spoken of only in so far as the Divine nature has attained supremacy in him.  "As long as the relationship with God is real, sinful acts are but accidents.  They do not touch the essence of the man's being" (Westcott).  "With his proper self, his real, completely independent personality, the regenerate man cannot sin; and so his sinning can never be a sinning in the full and proper sense of the word, but takes place only when his proper personality is overcome by the power of evil - is always sin of infirmity" (Rothe).

    These are statements which, to say the least, cannot be assented to.  It is true that the sins of a good man are foreign to that element in his nature which is deepest and most permanent, and which will ultimately assert its supremacy.  Nevertheless, there necessarily are elements in his personality to which his sins are due; and this the good man sincerely recognises and penitently confesses.  True it is, also, that the good man does not sin spontaneously and gratuitously, but only because he is overcome by the power of temptation.  But this is no less true of most of the sinning of unregenerate men.  No one, moreover, is overpowered by evil except by his own consent.  The will, though non-resisting, is not nonexistent even in sins of infirmity.  This explanation, so far from realising the Apostle's intention, rather, it seems to me, reverses it.  The whole paragraph is a protest against the doctrine that, in the regenerate man, sin is to be regarded as an "accident," or that his "proper self" is to be held blameless of his actual deeds.  Again, I submit, the explanation is that the statement is not theoretical but practical, moulded and warmly coloured by the exigencies of controversy.  St. John's ouv du,natai a`marta,nein is not the calm dictum of the theologian, but a word suffused with holy passion, a vehement repudiation of the adversary s false du,natai.  For it depends upon who the speaker is, and how it is said, and with what motive, whether it be true or false to say that the "begotten of God" can sin.  Suppose it to be claimed that he can, that he may be a liar, a glutton, or unchaste, yet none the less "begotten of God"; suppose it to be said that his very prerogative is this - that he can sin without prejudice to his high standing as a spiritual and enlightened man - "No!" would be the unhesitating reply, "that is what he cannot do."  What the fact of his being "begotten of God" means, is just that this has become to him morally impossible.  "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?"  It must be admitted that there are such monstrosities as mothers who can.  But if it be claimed that a mother can be cruel and neglectful, and that without losing her character as a mother, the right answer, the morally true answer, is an indignant denial.  In the same sense it is true that the Christian, because he is "begotten of God," cannot sin; and to assert the contrary is to assert a blasphemy, a calumny upon God.

    In the third Cycle of the Epistle the writer recurs finally to the Test²⁷ of Righteousness in 5¹⁸ "We know that every one that is begotten of God sinneth not; but he that was begotten of God keepeth himself and the wicked one toucheth him not."  Nothing needs to be added to the explanation already advanced of the unqualified language in which this last protest is made against the idea that declensions from actual righteousness are of small moment or none to the spiritual man.  But the second clause introduces new matter, "He that was begotten of God taketh heed²⁸ to himself,²⁹ and that wicked one toucheth him not."  This is added obviously as a safeguard against a perverse application of what has just been said, "Every one that is begotten of God sinneth not."  Might this truth be made a pillow for laziness instead of a stimulus to action?  Might some one, saying in his heart that he was "begotten of God," and that to him, therefore, righteousness was assured, fold his hands and go to sleep?  Let him remember that righteousness is possible to man only as victory over a powerful and sleepless foe ("the wicked one"); that this victory is won only by man's own vigilant effort ("taketh heed to himself"); and that, while both this vigilant effort and its victory are assured by the forces of the Divine Life operating in the regenerate, it is the effort made and the victory won that give the required proof of regeneration.

    In this practical motive of the clause we may find, perhaps, the reason for the strange substitution of the aorist form gennhqei,j for the usual perfect gegennhme,noj.³⁰  It is in this gegennhme,noj that danger may lurk.  "Begotten of God, therefore now and for ever, whether working out my salvation with fear and trembling, or living in somnolent security, I am a child of God."  But with the unique gennhqei,j the Divine Begetting is for the moment regarded as a past event, not necessarily of present efficacy.  "Were you once begotten of God?  Rest not on that; but take heed to yourself!  It is the very mark of the God-begotten that he takes heed to himself."  A greater might, a more ceaseless and penetrating vigilance than his own must be his salvation; and will be, but only on condition of his obedience to the Master's command grhgopei/te kai. proseu,cesqe.

    Then, "the wicked one layeth not hold of him"³¹  As it was true of the Master, so shall it be true of the watchful disciple " - The ruler of this world cometh and hath nothing in me."