borne witness to His Son that men may believe in Him and so “have” Him, and, having Him, may have life. O ur C onsequent A ssurance verses 13-17 Verse 13 — Although the RV, RSV and NEB begin a new para graph with this verse, it belongs es sentially to the previous section and prayer is whether our behavior ac cords with God’s commandments; here whether our requests accord with His will. Prayer is not a con venient device for imposing our will upon God, or bending His will to ours, but the prescribed way of sub ordinating our will to His. It is by prayer that we seek God’s will, em brace it and align ourselves with it. Every true prayer is a variation on the theme “Thy will be done.” Our Master taught us to say this in the pattern prayer He gave us, and add ed the supreme example of it in Gethsemane. In such prayers, and only in such, He heareth us, that is, not just that our petitions register and He takes note of them, but that He listens favorably to us, He gives ear to our cry (as in John 9:31; 11:41, 42). The Christian confidence is tantamount to a double certainty (oidamen . . . oidamen), which is in reality one. To say we know that he heareth us is the same as saying we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him. The present tense we have, echomen (RSV, “we have obtained” ) is striking, and reminiscent of Mark 11:24 where we are told to believe we did receive (elabetej what we request, and so it shall be (estai). “Our petitions are granted at once: the results of the granting are perceived in the future” (Plummer). Verse 16. Having written general ly of answered prayer (14, 15), John now gives a specific illustration and a limitation (16, 17). It is not now a case of petition, but of interces- 28
sion. The assurance of eternal life which the Christian should enjoy (13) ought not to lead him into a preoccupation with himself to the neglect of others. On the contrary, he will recognize his duty in love to care for his brother in need, whether the need which he “sees” be material (as in 3:17, 18) or, as here, spirit ual: “if any man see his brother sin.” He cannot say “am I my broth er’s keeper?” and do nothing. The future tense “he shall ask” expresses not the writer’s command but the Christian’s inevitable and spontan eous reaction. This is the way to deal with sin in the congregation. And God hears such prayer. “He shall ask, and he shall give him life.” Since God is the giver of life (cf. verses 11, 20), and since usually “asking is man’s part and giving God’s” (Plummer), some have sug gested a change of subject in the middle of this sentence, so that the second he refers to God and not to the intercessor. So RV, RSV. But the verbs are so simply and closely coupled in the Greek (aitesei kai dosei) that a different subject would be very forced. It is better to accept the ascription of real efficacy to prayer (as in verse 15), so that, under God, he who asks life for a man may be said not just to gain it for him but to give it to him. In either case, the “him” to whom life is given is the sinner, not the inter cessor. Cf. James v. 15, 20 where the prayer of faith for a sick man and the one who brings back a sin ner are both said to “save” him. Not every sinner can be given life in answer to prayer, however. John draws a distinction between a sin which is not unto death and a sin unto death. For those who commit the former the Christian will pray, and by prayer will give them life. For the latter John does not enjoin forms a fitting conclusion to what the author has there written both about the three witnesses and about hav-
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