(Note: This Reading is used in those regions where the Feast of the Epiphany is celebrated on a Sunday rather than on January 6.)

Commentary on 1 John 5:14-21

We come today to the last part of John’s Letter. It forms a kind of postscript to the rest of the work, much as chapter 21 is an epilogue in John’s Gospel. The passage consists of two parts: a prayer for sinners, and then a final summary of the main points in the Letter.

The section begins with an important definition of true prayer:

And this is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

Sometimes in our prayer when we are just asking for something that we want, it can happen that we feel disappointed or even angry when we do not get it.

But true prayer consists in trying to discover what exactly God wants of me, under the firm conviction that he always wants the very best. It is not a question of my demanding that God give me what I want or I think I need. Nor is it fatalistically submitting to a God who does things I don’t want to happen. Rather, it is a matter of God’s will and mine being brought fully into harmony, so that I really want (and not just am prepared to accept) what he wants. In this case, my will and God’s will coincide. I am doing what he wants and I am doing what I want! The secret of much happiness is right here and is the ultimate goal of Christian living.

One thing we are particularly urged to pray for here are brothers or sisters who have gone astray in their faith or morals, so that life might return fully to them. However, there are some who have committed “deadly” sins and the writer tells us:

I do not say that you should pray about that.

This is to say, the author suggests there may not be much use in praying.

What is such a “deadly” sin? In the Gospel, the only sin that cannot be forgiven is the sin against the Holy Spirit, that is, the sin of totally closing one’s mind to truth (see Matt 12:31-32). Once we have taken such a step and remain in that state, there is no way that we can be reached by a loving and forgiving God. As long as a person is in this state, they are beyond help. Nevertheless, despite what the writer implies, it would seem that we could certainly pray that such an attitude might change.

In the context of this letter, “deadly sin” may refer to those who have abandoned their Christian faith and become apostates, perhaps under the pressure of persecution. To save their skins, they have given up the Truth that is Christ; they have closed a door which only they can reopen.

Additionally, it could also refer to those heretics who denied the ‘Sonship’ of Jesus, either partially or totally. Similarly, it could refer to those who had taken up a Gnostic position which, on the one hand, believed in separating oneself entirely from all that is material in this world and then, by a perverted kind of logic, believed in living a totally amoral life. (Their thesis was: If physical matter is an evil to be avoided and is destined to non-existence, does it really matter what you do with it? Does it matter what you do with your body or someone else’s?)

Yet another view is that a deadly sin is so serious that it results in physical death, hence putting the person beyond prayer.

In the final summary of his letter, the writer makes three statements all beginning with: “We know that…” The first is:

We know that those who are born of God do not sin, but the one who was born of God protects them, and the evil one does not touch them.

As long as one is consciously committed to Christ and has totally submitted his or her life to his Way, sin is a contradiction. The two cannot co-exist.

The second statement says:

We know that we are God’s children and that the whole world lies under the power of the evil one.

Being a Christian (in a real and not just a notional sense) and being under the influence of the “world” are again mutually exclusive.

And the third says:

…we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ.

By being “in” Jesus Christ we are also “in” God who sent him among us. This is the blessed role of Jesus, to be God made visible so that we know how and where we can find God in our lives.

In conclusion, we are warned to be on our guard against idols. There is a sharp antithesis between the children of God and those belonging to the world and to the ‘evil one’. In the context of the letter, it is a warning against the many idols in which the surrounding peoples believed, and in the idol of the emperor as a divine being to which no Christian could give an allegiance which was due only to God. Many died martyrs because of their refusal to worship the emperor’s image. But there must have been many who caved in because of fear.

Perhaps we are not touched by such idols today (even when we live in places with statues of gods and deities), but there are many other idols of a more subtle kind which we can easily fail to recognise as such. These include materialism and consumerism, the obsession with money and wealth, the cult of sex and even of the body (through slavery to image and fashion), and the cult of the hero whether in the media or in sports (‘fans’ = fanatics, a word used to describe the actions of frenzied worshippers in another age). Obsession with such idols can blind us to the very real needs—material, social and spiritual—of those around us. Then we fail in the essential quality of being a child of God—love for each other.