Andreas of Caesarea — Commentary on Scripture

1 John 4:17

Jesus said: “The ruler of this world is coming, and he shall find nothing in me.” We ought to be the same, so that nothing of this world may be found in us either.

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1 John 4:19

God loves us so much that even the hairs of our head are numbered, as it says in the Gospels. It is not that God goes around numbering hairs but rather that he has exact understanding and complete foreknowledge of everything to do with us.

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1 John 4:21

The person who loves God keeps his commandments, and loving one’s brother is the fulfillment of those commandments. The person who does not love his brother has not kept the commandments and by not keeping them has not loved God. The one who says he loves but does not do so is a liar.

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1 John 5:1

By practicing virtue, those who are born of God have become his children, his friends, just as Abraham was. Once again John touches on the doctrine of truth, revealing the depths of the unbelief of the heretics.

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1 John 5:3

Keeping the commandments is both the form and substance of our love for God. Those who obey them are brought close to God by them. If someone looks at them in the wrong way and says that they are heavy to bear, he is merely revealing his own weakness.

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1 John 5:4

This means that such a person has overcome all evil and ungodliness. For our faith has destroyed all ignorance and driven out all darkness.

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1 John 5:6

What flowed from his side was also the blood which cleanses us from sin and sanctifies the people of God.… It was not a mere man who appeared at the Jordan but the incarnate Word of God, to whom the Father also bore witness: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” Similarly, when he was hanging on the cross, what sounded to the people like thunder was the voice of God speaking at the moment that his blood fell to the ground.

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1 John 5:10

After giving us one testimony about his Son, God gave us another, which is eternal life.

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1 John 5:16

It is the sin of heresy, or of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which leads to death. If one man sins against another, pray for him. But if he sins against God, who is there who can pray on his behalf?

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1 John 5:18

It may be true that the righteous person does not sin, but no one is a child of God by nature. This is why we avoid sin, not by the way in which we were made, which would make sin impossible for us, but by watching out that we do not fall into it.

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1 John 5:20

Even at the end of his letter, John never stops insisting on the need for right doctrine. We have been given understanding to the extent that we have known the Son of God, who really has come into the world. This is what it means to say that “we have the mind of Christ.” The person who has this mind and understanding knows what is really true and is united with him because he shares the same mind.

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