1 Yohanes 2:5

2:5 But whoever obeys his ¹  word, truly in this person ²  the love of God has been perfected. By this we know that we are in him.

1 Yohanes 3:22

3:22 and ³  whatever we ask we receive from him, because ⁴  we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing to him.

1 Yohanes 4:2

4:2 By this ⁵  you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses ⁶  Jesus as the Christ ⁷  who has come in the flesh is from God,

1 Yohanes 4:15

4:15 If anyone ⁸  confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God resides ⁹  in him and he in God.

1 Yohanes 5:14

5:14 And this is the confidence that we have before him: that ¹⁰  whenever ¹¹  we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

[2:5]  ¹ tn The referent of this pronoun is probably to be understood as God, since God is the nearest previous antecedent.

[2:5]  ² tn Grk “in him.”

[3:22]  ³ tn The conjunction καί (kai) which begins 3:22 is epexegetical (explanatory), relating a further implication of the “confidence” (παρρησίαν, parrhsian) which believers have before God when their heart (conscience) does not condemn them. They can ask things of God with the expectation of receiving their requests.

[3:22]  ⁴ tn The ὅτι (Joti) is clearly causal, giving the reason why believers receive what they ask.

[4:2]  ⁵ tn There is no subordinating conjunction following the ἐν τούτῳ (en toutw) here in 4:2, so the phrase could refer either (1) to what precedes or (2) to what follows. Contextually the phrase refers to what follows, because the following clause in 4:2b-3a (πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃ ὁμολογεῖ ᾿Ιησοῦν Χριστὸν…ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν, καὶ πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃ μὴ ὁμολογεῖ τὸν ᾿Ιησοῦν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐκ ἔστιν), while not introduced by a subordinating conjunction, does explain the preceding clause beginning with ἐν τούτῳ. In other words, the following clause in 4:2b-3a is analogous to a subordinate clause introduced by an epexegetical ἵνα (Jina) or ὅτι (Joti), and the relationship can be represented in the English translation by a colon, “By this you know the Spirit of God: Every Spirit that confesses Jesus as the Christ who has come in the flesh is from God, but every Spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.”

[4:2]  ⁶ tn Or “acknowledges.”

[4:2]  ⁷ tn This forms part of the author’s christological confession which serves as a test of the spirits. Many interpreters have speculated that the author of 1 John is here correcting or adapting a slogan of the secessionist opponents, but there is no concrete evidence for this in the text. Such a possibility is mere conjecture (see R. E. Brown, Epistles of John [AB], 492). The phrase may be understood in a number of different ways, however: (1) the entire phrase “Jesus Christ come in the flesh” may be considered the single object of the verb ὁμολογεῖ (Jomologei; so B. F. Westcott, A. Brooke, J. Bonsirven, R. E. Brown, S. Smalley, and others); (2) the verb ὁμολογεῖ may be followed by a double accusative, so that both “Jesus Christ” and “come in the flesh” are objects of the verb; the meaning would be “confess Jesus Christ as come in the flesh” (so B. Weiss, J. Chaine, and others). (3) Another possibility is to see the verb as followed by a double accusative as in (2), but in this case the first object is “Jesus” and the second is “the Christ come in the flesh,” so that what is being confessed is “Jesus as the Christ come in the flesh” (so N. Alexander, J. Stott, J. Houlden, and others). All three options are grammatically possible, although not equally probable. Option (1) has a number of points in its favor: (a) the parallel in 2 John 7 suggests to some that the phrase should be understood as a single object; (b) option (2) makes “Jesus Christ” the name of the preincarnate second Person of the Trinity, and this would be the only place in the Johannine literature where such a designation for the preincarnate Λόγος (Logos) occurs; and (c) option (3) would have been much clearer if Χριστόν (Criston) were accompanied by the article (ὁμολογεῖ ᾿Ιησοῦν τὸν Χριστόν, Jomologei Ihsoun ton Criston). Nevertheless option (3) is preferred on the basis of the overall context involving the secessionist opponents: Their christological views would allow the confession of the Christ come in the flesh (perhaps in the sense of the Spirit indwelling believers, although this is hard to prove), but they would have trouble confessing that Jesus was (exclusively) the Christ incarnate. The author’s failure to repeat the qualifying phrases (Χριστὸν ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα, Criston en sarki elhluqota) in the negative repetition in 4:3a actually suggests that the stress is on Jesus as the confession the opponents could not or would not make. It is difficult to see how the parallel in 2 John 7 favors option (1), although R. E. Brown (Epistles of John [AB], 492) thinks it does. The related or parallel construction in John 9:22 (ἐάν τις αὐτὸν ὁμολογήσῃ Χριστόν, ean ti" auton Jomologhsh Criston) provides further support for option (3). This is discounted by R. E. Brown because the verb in John 9:22 occurs between the two accusative objects rather than preceding both as here (Epistles of John [AB], 493 – although Brown does mention Rom 10:9 as another parallel closer in grammatical structure to 1 John 4:2). Brown does not mention the textual variants in John 9:22, however: Both Ì⁶⁶ and Ì⁷⁵ (along with K, ˹³ and others) read ὁμολογήσῃ αὐτὸν Χριστόν (Jomologhsh auton Criston). This structure exactly parallels 1 John 4:2, and a case can be made that this is actually the preferred reading in John 9:22; furthermore, it is clear from the context in John 9:22 that Χριστόν is the complement (what is predicated of the first accusative) since the object (the first accusative) is αὐτόν rather than the proper name ᾿Ιησοῦν. The parallel in John 9:22 thus appears to be clearer than either 1 John 4:2 or 2 John 7, and thus to prove useful in understanding both the latter constructions.

[4:15]  ⁸ tn Grk “Whoever.”

[4:15]  ⁹ tn Here μένει (menei, from μένω [menw]) has been translated as “resides” because the confession is constitutive of the relationship, and the resulting state (“God resides in him”) is in view.

[5:14]  ¹⁰ tn For the third time in 5:9-14 the author uses the construction αὕτη ἐστίν ({auth estin; 5:9, 11, 14). As in the previous instance (5:11) the ὅτι (Joti) clause which follows is epexegetical (explanatory) to the pronoun αὕτη and explains what the “confidence” (παρρησία, parrhsia) consists of (technically the subject is ἡ παρρησία, the predicate nominative is the pronoun αὕτη, and the ὅτι clause explains the predicate nominative): “And the confidence which we have before him is this, namely, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.”

[5:14]  ¹¹ tn A third-class condition is introduced by ἐάν (ean) + present subjunctive. Because the apodosis also contains a present tense verb (ἀκούει, akouei) this belongs in a subcategory of third-class conditional sentences known as present general. In the Koine period ἐάν can mean “when” or “whenever” and is virtually the equivalent of ὅταν (Jotan; see BDAG 268 s.v. ἐάν 2). Thus the meaning here is, “whenever (i.e., if) we ask anything according to his will, then he hears us.”