What Does 1 John 5:13 Mean?

[**4.The Conclusion** (1John 5:13-21). (1)FRESH STATEMENT OF THE PURPOSE OF WRITING, equivalent to that at the beginning of the Epistle, but differing from it (1John 5:13). (2)WHAT CAN BE DONE FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT COME UP TO THE STANDARD ASSUMED THROUGHOUT THE EPISTLE (1John 5:14-17). (3)SOME PRACTICAL POINTS RECAPITULATED (1John 5:18-20). (*a*)*God’s sons do not sin* (1John 5:18); (*b*)*Personal assurance that we are God’s sons *(1John 5:19); (*c*)*Personal assurance that Christ is come, of the gift of the spiritual sense, and of abiding in the God of Truth through His Son* (1John 5:20). (4) LAST WARNING (1John 5:21).] St. John, thinking perhaps of the close of his Gospel, where he states the same purpose (John 20:31), and reminded by 1John 5:11 of the supreme importance of having eternal life, and of the necessity of finding this in the Son, sums up the object of his Letter in these two ideas. He tells his friends again that he writes to them because they believe on the name of the Son of God, and explains his wish to be that, by the thoughts which he has put before them, they may feel certain that the eternal life which ought to be theirs is theirs already, and that their belief may not cease, but may be really vital. Thinking then of those who would be deceiving themselves if they pretended to any such hopeful assurance, he reminds the faithful of the power of prayer. Beginning with the general statement that confidence in God means that He hears us, he goes on to show that hearing must imply that our petitions are granted; and next, that it would be a petition quite in accordance with God’s will, and therefore likely to be heard, if a believer were to pray for a sinning brother. At the same time it must be recollected that there is such a state of wilful, hard-hearted rebellion that it is past praying for. Meantime they must remember again that as far as they were born of God they could not wilfully sin; that if they were what St. John thought them they had ample proofs that they were of God, and must not forget that the whole world was corrupted; and that there could not be any doubt that the Son of God was come, and had given them the spiritual sense necessary to discerning the true God. In that true God they were, through His Son. The God of whom the Son had spoken was that true God, and to know Him as such in His Son was eternal life. The last request was, that they should strictly guard themselves against any appearance or tendency whatsoever which might claim their sympathy or allegiance apart from God. (1) FRESH STATEMENT OF PURPOSE (1John 5:13). (13) Comp. John 20:31. The expression here is more positive than in the Gospel: there, “that ye might believe, and that believing ye might have life;” here, “that ye may know that ye have.” He wishes to produce in them a good hope. The specific object at the beginning of the Epistle was the communication of joy through fellowship with the Apostles the knowledge of possessing eternal life and the continuance of their faith would be precisely that joy. (2) WHAT CAN BE DONE FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT COME UP TO THE STANDARD ASSUMED (1John 5:14-17). (14) **And this is the confidence.—**The assurance intended in 1John 5:13 implies confidence, and confidence means the conviction that God is not deaf to our prayers. But these must not be contrary to His will. The Lord’s Prayer reminds us that the Person referred to here is the Father. (15) **That we have the petitions.**—The goodness of God as Light and Love is so fully established that if our petitions are according to His will it follows necessarily that He grants them. (16) **If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death.**—Here are meant such stumblings as do not imply any distinct, wilful, deliberate severance from the faith of Christ. To divide sins, on the authority of this passage, into venial and mortal is to misunderstand the whole argument of the Epistle and to seduce the conscience. St. John only means that though prayer can do much for an erring brother, there is a wilfulness against which it would be powerless: for even prayer is not stronger than freewill. (Comp. 1John 2:1; Luke 22:31-32; John 17:9; Hebrews 7:25.) **And he shall give.**—The interceding Christian is regarded as gaining life for the erring brother and handing it on to him. **There is a sin unto death.**—The limit of intercession is now given: such conscious and determined sin as shows a loss of all hold on Christ. Such a state would be a sign of spiritual death. Hardened obstinacy would be invincible; and as it would not be according to the will of God that prayers, by the nature of the case in vain, should be offered to Him, St. John thinks that intercession ought to stop here. At the same time, he is careful not categorically to forbid it; he only says that in such cases he does not recommend intercessory prayer. (Comp. Matthew 12:31-32; Mark 3:29; Hebrews 6:4; Hebrews 6:6; Hebrews 10:26-27.) “His brother” is here, of course, a nominal Christian. (17) **All unrighteousness is sin.**—Here St. John reminds them that all Christians might, at one time or another, stand in need of intercessory prayer, even those who, on the whole, might be considered as “sinning not” (because their permanent will was against sin, and for holiness), because every declension from the perfect righteousness of God is error or sin. Nothing that was not hopelessly deliberate need be considered a sign of absolute spiritual death. (Comp. 1John 3:4.)