By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.
All Commentaries on 1 John 5:2 Go To 1 John 5
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
In this we know that we love the sons of God. 1 John 4:2 What is this, brethren? Just now he was speaking of the Son of God, not of sons of God: lo, here one Christ was set before us to contemplate, and we were told, Whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loves Him that begot, i.e. the Father, loves Him also that is begotten of Him, i.e. the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And he goes on: In this we know that we love the sons of God; as if he had been about to say, In this we know that we love the Son of God. He has said, the sons of God, whereas he was speaking just before of the Son of God— because the sons of God are the Body of the Only Son of God, and when He is the Head, we the members, it is one Son of God. Therefore, he that loves the sons of God, loves the Son of God, and he that loves the Son of God, loves the Father; nor can any love the Father except he love the Son, and he that loves the sons, loves also the Son of God. What sons of God? The members of the Son of God. And by loving he becomes himself a member, and comes through love to be in the frame of the body of Christ, so there shall be one Christ, loving Himself. For when the members love one another, the body loves itself. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it. 1 Corinthians 12:26-27 And then he goes on to say, Now you are the body of Christ, and members. John was speaking just before of brotherly love, and said, He that loves not his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he sees not? 1 John 4:20 But if you love your brother, haply you love your brother and lovest not Christ? How should that be, when you love members of Christ? When therefore you love members of Christ, you love Christ; when you love Christ, you love the Son of God; when you love the Son of God, you love also the Father. The love therefore cannot be separated into parts. Choose what you will love; the rest follow you. Suppose you say, I love God alone, God the Father. You are lying: if you love, you love Him not alone; but if you love the Father, you love also the Son. Behold, do you say, I love the Father, and I love the Son: but this only, the Father God and the Son God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, that Word by which all things were made, and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt in us: this alone I love. You are lying; for if you love the Head, you love also the members; but if you love not the members, neither do you love the Head. Do you not quake at the voice uttered by the Head from Heaven on behalf of His members, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute ME? Acts 9:4 The persecutor of His members He called His persecutor: His lover, the lover of His members. Now what are His members, you know, brethren: none other than the Church of God. In this we know that we love the sons of God, in that we love God. And how? Are not the sons of God one thing, God Himself another? But he that loves God, loves His precepts. And what are the precepts of God? A new commandment give I unto you, that you love one another. John 13:34 Let none excuse himself by another love, for another love; so and so only is it with this love: as the love itself is compacted in one, so all that hang by it does it make one, and as fire melts them down into one. It is gold: the lump is molten and becomes some one thing. But unless the fervor of charity be applied, of many there can be no melting down into one. That we love God, by this know we that we love the sons of God.
And by what do we know that we love the sons of God? By this, that we love God, and do His commandments. We sigh here, by reason of the hardness of doing the commandments of God. Hear what follows. O man, at what do you toil in loving? In loving avarice. With toil is that loved which you love: there is no toil in loving God. Avarice will enjoin you labors, perils, sore hardships and tribulations; and you will do its bidding. To what end? That you may have that with which you shall fill your chest, and lose your peace of mind. You felt yourself haply more secure before you had it, than since you began to have. See what avarice has enjoined you. You have filled your house, and art in dread of robbers; hast gotten gold, lost your sleep. See what avarice has enjoined you. Do, and you did. What does God enjoin you! Love me. You love gold, you will seek gold, and perchance not find it: whoever seeks me, I am with him. You will love honor, and perchance not attain unto it: who ever loved me, and did not attain? God says to you, you would make you a patron, or a powerful friend: you seek a way to his favor by means of another inferior. Love me, says God to you: favor with me is not had by making interest with some other: your love itself makes me present to you. What sweeter than this love, brethren? It is not without reason that you heard just now in the Psalm, The unrighteous told me of delights, but not as is Your law, O Lord. What is the Law of God? The commandment of God. What is the commandment of God? That new commandment, which is called new because it makes new: A new commandment give I unto you, that you love one another. John 13:34 Hear because this is the law of God. The apostle says, Bear ye one another's burdens, and so shall you fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2 This, even this, is the consummation of all our works; Love. In it is the end: for this we run: to it we run; when we have come to it, we shall rest.
You have heard in the Psalm, I have seen the end of all perfection. He has said, I have seen the end of all perfection: what had he seen? Think we, had he ascended to the peak of some very high and pointed mountain, and looked out thence and seen the compass of the earth, and the circles of the round world, and therefore said, I have seen the end of all perfection? If this be a thing to be praised, let us ask of the Lord eyes of the flesh so sharp-sighted, that we shall but require some exceeding high mountain on earth, that from its summit we may see the end of all perfection. Go not far: lo, I say to you, it is here; ascend the mountain, and see the end. Christ is the Mountain; come to Christ: you see thence the end of all perfection. What is this end? Ask Paul: But the end of the commandment is charity, from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned: 1 Timothy 1:5 and in another place, Charity is the fullness, or fulfillment, of the law. What so finished and terminated as fullness? For, brethren, the apostle here uses end in a way of praise. Think not of consumption, but of consummation. For it is in one sense that one says, I have finished my bread, in another, I have finished my coat. I have finished the bread, by eating it: the coat, by making it. In both places the word is end, finish: but the bread is finished by its being consumed, the coat is finished by being made: the bread, so as to be no more; the coat, so as to be complete. Therefore in this sense take ye also this word, end, when the Psalm is read and you hear it said, On the end, a Psalm of David. You are for ever hearing this in the Psalms, and you should know what ye hear. What means, On the end?— For Christ is the end of the law unto every one that believes. Romans 13:10 And what means, Christ is the end? Because Christ is God, and the end of the commandment is charity, and Charity is God: because Father and Son and Holy Ghost are One. There is He the End to you; elsewhere He is the Way. Do not stick fast in the way, and so never come to the end. Whatever else you come to, pass beyond it, until you come to the end. What is the end? It is good for me to hold me fast in God. Have you laid fast hold on God? You have finished the way: you shall abide in your own country. Mark well! Some man seeks money: let not it be the end to you: pass on, as a traveller in a strange land. But if you love it, you are entangled by avarice; avarice will be shackles to your feet: you can make no more progress. Pass therefore this also: seek the end. You seek health of the body: still do not stop there. For what is it, this health of the body, which death makes an end of, which sickness debilitates, a feeble, mortal, fleeting thing? Seek that, indeed, lest haply ill-health hinder your good works: but for that very reason, the end is not there, for it is sought in order to something else. Whatever is sought in order to something else, the end is not there: whatever is loved for its own sake, and freely, the end is there. You seek honors; perchance seekest them in order to do something, that you may accomplish something, and so please God: love not the honor itself, lest you stop there. Do you seek praise? If you seek God's, you do well; if you seek your own, you do ill; you stop short in the way. But behold, you are loved, art praised: think it not joy when in yourself you are praised; be praised in the Lord, that you may sing, In the Lord shall my soul be praised. Thou deliverest some good discourse, and your discourse is praised. Let it not be praised as yours, the end is not there. If you set the end there, there is an end of you: but an end, not that you be perfected, but that you be consumed. Then let not your discourse be praised as coming from you, as being yours. But how praised? As the Psalm says, In God will I praise the discourse, in God will I praise the word. Hereby shall that which there follows come to pass in you: In God have I hoped, I will not fear what man can do unto me. For when all things that are yours are praised in God, no fear lest your praise be lost, since God fails not. Pass therefore this also.
See, brethren, how many things we pass, in which is not the end. These we use as by the way; we take as it were our refreshment at the halting places on our journey, and pass on. Where then is the end? Beloved, we are sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be; 1 John 3:2 here is this said, in this epistle. As yet then, we are on the way; as yet, wherever we come, we must pass on, until we attain unto some end. We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. That is the end; there perpetual praising, there Alleluia always without fail. This, then is the end he has spoken of in the Psalm: I have seen the end of all perfection: and as though it were said to him, What is the end you have seen? Your commandment, exceeding broad. This is the end: the breadth of the commandment. The breadth of the commandment is charity, because where charity is, there are no straits. In this breadth, this wide room, was the apostle when he said, Our mouth is open to you, O you Corinthians, our heart is enlarged: you are not straitened in us. 2 Corinthians 6:11-12 In this, then, is Your commandment exceeding broad. What is the broad commandment? A new commandment give I unto you, that you love one another. Charity, then, is not straitened. Would you not be straitened here on earth? Dwell in the broad room. For whatever man may do to you, he shall not straiten you; because you love that which man cannot hurt: lovest God, lovest the brotherhood, lovest the law of God, lovest the Church of God: it shall be for ever. Thou laborest here on earth, but you shall come to the promised enjoyment. Who can take from you that which you love? If no man can take from you that which you love, secure you sleep, or rather secure you watch, lest by sleeping you lose that which you love. For not without reason is it said, Enlighten my eyes, lest at any time I sleep in death. They that shut their eyes against charity, fall asleep in the lusts of carnal delights. Be wakeful, therefore. For then are the delights, to eat, to drink, to wanton in luxury, to play, to hunt; these vain pomps all evils follow. Are we ignorant that they are delights? Who can deny that they delight? But more beloved is the law of God. Cry against such persuaders: The unrighteous have told me of delights: but not so as is your law, O Lord. This delight remains. Not only remains as the goal to which you may come, but also calls you back when you flee.
