The Epistles of John. Samuel M. Ngewa
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use of both present and aorist tenses here probably serves “as a stylic device to heighten the rhetorical effect of what he is writing.”126
Love Toward the Father
John is not only interested in his believing readers exercising the horizontal love but also the vertical love. In fact, it is the vertical relationship (with God) that makes it possible to have harmonious relationship with other persons.
The love of the Father is expressed within the context of prohibition not to love things that would strangle the love of the Father. This calls to mind Jesus’ words that one cannot serve two masters (Matt 6:24). John tells his readers, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world” (2:15, mē agapate ton kosmon mēde ta en tō kosmō). The prohibition here is expressed using mē and present imperative,127 and this allows for the possibility that John’s readers (at least some) were already at fault in this matter.128 John, however, tells them that love for the world and the things in it (kosmos here understood as that system which is in opposition to the things of God129) excludes love of the Father. He says, “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (ean tis agapa ton kosmon, ouk estin hē agapē tou patros en autō, 2:15b). The use of the third class condition here (projecting a possible situation, and not asserting a particular occurrence as a first class condition would130) does not necessarily mean that the prohibition above cannot be an actual happening for some of his readers. He could here be stating the general principle that would apply to anyone if the condition is allowed so as to enforce the prohibition as it actually affected some. The genitive “of the Father” (tou patros) is here best taken as objective genitive. The one who loves the world is not able to love the Father also. There is a choice one must make for the two cannot go together. The reason for this exclusion is that what is in the world does not come from the Father (ouk estin ek tou patros). It is not his will. Specifically, what is in the world, in this negative usage, include, “lust of the flesh,” “lust of the eyes,” and “pride of life” (hē epithumia tēs sarkos kai hē epithumia tōn ophthalmōn kai hē alazoneia tou biou, 2:16)
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