In 5:2 John continues, “In this we know that we love the children of God, whenever we love God and practice His commandments.” Loving God and practicing His commandments are the prerequisite of our loving the children of God. This is based upon the divine birth and the divine life.
In 5:2 John speaks of practicing the Lord’s commandments. The Greek word rendered “practice” is poieo, a word that denotes doing things habitually and continually by abiding in the things; hence, it is used in this Epistle in the sense of practice. This word is used in 1:6; 2:17, 29; 3:4 (twice), 7, 8, 9, 10, 22; and here in 5:2.
Verse 3 is the conclusion of this section: “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.” The Greek word for love here is agape, denoting the love which is higher and nobler than phileo. Only agape with its verb forms is used in this Epistle for love. “The love of God” here denotes our love toward God, which is generated by His love within us.
In 5:3 John says that the love of God is that we keep His commandments, commandments that are not burdensome. Keeping the commandments of God constitutes our love toward Him and is an evidence that we love Him. Literally, the Greek word for “burdensome” means heavy. To the divine life with its capability, the commandments of God are not heavy.
In all these verses John is actually speaking concerning the issue of the fellowship of the divine life. When we are in the fellowship of the divine life, that is, in the enjoyment of the Triune God, this enjoyment will have a certain issue or outcome. The outcome of the enjoyment of the Triune God is the divine love. When we enjoy the Triune God, this enjoyment issues in the divine love. Such a result will certainly come out of this enjoyment. With this divine love we spontaneously love others. In particular, we love all those who are organically related to our begetting Father. We have been begotten of this Father, and many others also have been begotten of Him. If we enjoy Him, the result will be that we love all His children. Therefore, loving the brothers is the issue of enjoying the Triune God.
The Triune God as revealed in this Epistle is not only life, light, and love; He is also the all-inclusive Spirit. This Spirit dwells in us and moves in us so that we may enjoy the Triune God. As we enjoy the Triune God, His essence becomes our being. As a result, we have life, light, and love, and we live by this life and in this light and love. Spontaneously, we live a life that loves the children of God. This is John’s thought in this Epistle.
However, when we read 1 John, we may not have this understanding of loving the brothers. We may see only that we are told that God is love and that we are charged to love one another. Then in a natural, religious, and ethical way we may try to love others, imitating God’s love. In our nature as human beings there is the tendency to love in this way. But this kind of love may be ethical, natural, and even cultural.
Many have been taught to love others and to be kind to them. Many Christians, of course, are under the influence of such teaching. But these Christians may not see the matter of the anointing in this Epistle. They may not realize that within them there is a divine moving, working, and saturating. They may emphasize teaching, but they may fail to emphasize the inner anointing. The word “anointing” is a key word in this Epistle. This word implies that today the Triune God is the compound ointment moving within us. This ointment includes the process through which the Triune God has passed: incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. All the steps of this process are the ingredients of this compound ointment.
The anointing is the function of this ointment. This means that the function of this ointment is to anoint us with the Triune God. Therefore, the anointing anoints us with the Father, the Son, the Spirit, incarnation, humanity, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Hence, when we are anointed by the moving of the all-inclusive Spirit within us, we are anointed with all these elements. This means that the different elements of the compound ointment are anointed into our being. Just as the elements of paint are applied to something that is painted, so the elements of the divine paint, the all-inclusive Spirit, are imparted to our being.
As indicated by the word anointing, the teaching of the apostle John in this book is very subjective and is related to our organic union with the Triune God. Whereas many Christians today emphasize objective doctrine, God’s economy, His dispensation, emphasizes the anointing. The anointing within us is saturating us with all that the Triune God is, with all that He has done, and with all that He has obtained and attained.
Although 1 John presents a subjective revelation, those who are preoccupied with doctrine, creeds, and objective belief neglect the subjective revelation, and even condemn us for teaching it. Our teaching concerning the anointing may be different from traditional teaching, but it is definitely scriptural. Even if this teaching is different from the traditional teaching, it is not different from what is revealed in the Bible.
Now that we have covered this Epistle from 1:1 to 5:3, we can see that what is revealed in this book is altogether related to the anointing. We need to remember what the anointing is. The anointing is the moving, the working, the saturating, of the processed Triune God within us to be our life, our life supply, our enjoyment, and our everything. This anointing, which is fully realized in the fellowship of the divine life, is the subject of this Epistle.