4:11 Dear friends, if God so loved us, then 1 we also ought to love one another. 2
4:20 If anyone says 3 “I love God” and yet 4 hates his fellow Christian, 5 he is a liar, because the one who does not love his fellow Christian 6 whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 7 4:21 And the commandment we have from him is this: that 8 the one who loves God should love his fellow Christian 9 too.
1 tn Grk “and.” The Greek conjunction καί (kai) introduces the apodosis of the conditional sentence.
2 tn This is a first-class conditional sentence with εἰ (ei) + aorist indicative in the protasis. Reality is assumed for the sake of argument with a first-class condition.
sn The author here assumes the reality of the protasis (the “if” clause), which his recipients, as believers, would also be expected to agree with: Assuming that God has loved us in this way, then it follows that we also ought to love one another. God’s act of love in sending his Son into the world to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins (v. 10) ought to motivate us as believers to love one another in a similar sacrificial fashion. The author made the same point already in 1 John 3:16. But this failure to show love for fellow believers is just what the opponents are doing: In 1 John 3:17 the author charged them with refusing to love their brothers by withholding needed material assistance. By their failure to love the brothers sacrificially according to the example Jesus set for believers, the opponents have demonstrated again the falsity of their claims to love God and know God (see 1 John 2:9).
3 tn Grk “if anyone should say…”
4 tn “Yet” is supplied to bring out the contrast.
5 tn See note on the phrase “fellow Christian” in 2:9.
6 tn See note on the phrase “fellow Christian” in 2:9.
7 sn In 4:20 the author again describes the opponents, who claim to love God. Their failure to show love for their fellow Christians proves their claim to know God to be false: The one who does not love his fellow Christian whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
8 tn The ἵνα (Jina) clause in 4:21 could be giving (1) the purpose or (2) the result of the commandment mentioned in the first half of the verse, but if it does, the author nowhere specifies what the commandment consists of. It makes better sense to understand this ἵνα clause as (3) epexegetical to the pronoun ταύτην (tauthn) at the beginning of 4:21 and thus explaining what the commandment consists of: “that the one who loves God should love his brother also.”
9 tn See note on the phrase “fellow Christian” in 2:9.