The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle of S. John
Chapter 3
And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.
Ver. 1. — Behold what great love the Father hath bestowed on us (unworthy, enemies and sinners as we are), that we should be called , and be the sons of God. Love, actively, His wondrous love to us, and passively, as communicated and infused into us. “ How much He loved us,” says Vatablus, “ in giving us that love whereby we are called the sons of God. For our created love flows out of His uncreated love, as a ray from the sun,” &c. For those whom God loves with His uncreated love, He makes to love Him in return with that created love which He infuses. For love is friendship or mutual affection between God and a righteous man. And just as we His creatures owe Him, as our Creator, all honour, worship, and service, so do we as His servants owe Him, as our Lord, fear, reverence, and obedience, and as the Father of all do we owe Him our highest love, our whole heart, our whole will and affections.
S. John had before stated that he that doeth righteousness is born of God. He here teaches the excellence of that Divine sonship, its fruit and its reward, in order to excite the faithful to those works of righteousness, which show that they are His thankful and worthy children, and to lead them to preserve this their sonship, till it attain the reward of eternal life. Each of S. John’s words has great weight, and inspires fresh inducements to love. By the Father we understand the whole Trinity, but especially the Person of the Father, because it is the Father’s work to beget children like to His Only Begotten Son, and because our calling, our election, our predestination are the proper work of the Father, and the effect of all these is our justification and adoption as sons. As S. Augustine says (de Nat. et Grat. cap. ult.), “ Inchoate love is inchoate righteousness, advanced love is advanced righteousness, perfect love is perfect righteousness.” And S. Dion. (Eccl. Hier. i. 2) says, “The first motion of the mind to heavenly things, and its aiming after God, is love. And the first step of holy love towards fulfilling the commands of God, is an unspeakable operation, because we have it from above. For if this heavenly state has a divine origin and birth, he who hath not received it will neither know nor do those things which are taught by God.” And hence S. Cyril (Is. xliv. and Tesaur. xii. 3) calls love the stamp of the Divine Essence, the sanctification, refashioning, the beauty and splendour of the soul.
That we should be called the sons of God (by adoption, as Christ ) and be such. Many are named that which they are not. But we are so named, in order that we may be such. For as S. Augustine says (in loc.), “If any are called sons and are not, what doth the name profit, where the thing is not? How many are called physicians, who know not how to heal, or watchers, who sleep all the night through ? And in like manner many are called Christians, and are not found to be really such, because they are not that which they are called, in life, in faith, in hope, in charity.” But what are the words here ? “ That ye should be called and should be the sons of God.” As S. Paul says, Gal. iv. 6. Let the innovators note this who say that we are called righteous only by Christ’s imputed righteousness, that the words ‘and be such’ are wanting in many MSS. But then the meaning is included in the words ‘are called.’ For those who are called anything by God are made to be that which they are called. As a king by calling any one by a title, confers that title upon him, much more does God do so, by infusing real gifts of grace in those whom He calls His sons, thus making them worthy of the name, which a king cannot do. For as God in begetting His Son communicated to Him His very nature and divinity, so does He by regenerating us make us partakers of His Godhead, as S. Peter says and the Psalmist also (Ps. lxxxii. 6). As God is holy in His essence, so does the righteous man who is born of God partake of His sanctity, and all His other attributes, being Almighty, unchangeable , heavenly, impeccable, full of goodness. He is omniscient, as being taught of God ; imperturbable, as living above the world; liberal, and envying no man, but promoting every one’s interest, as though it were his own. He glows with charity, rendering his enemies good for evil, and thus making them his friends. He is upright, patient, constant, even-minded, prudent, bold, sincere.
Hence it follows that we are by justification the sons of God in a threefold respect — (1.) In the past by our spiritual generation. See 2 Pet. i. 4; John i. 12; and above, iv. 4 and 6, and v. 18. (2.) By His fatherly care over us. (See Ps. lv. 23 ; above v. 15 ; Luke xii. 7.) “ Why fearest thou,” says S. Augustine, “ since thou art in the bosom of God, who is both thy father and thy mother?” (3.) He is our Father, by the heavenly inheritance which He will give us, making us heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. See Ps. xvi. 6. The Gentiles used falsely to boast of their descent from the gods. But the Christian’s boast is a true one. And the truer it is, the more should it stimulate us to godlike deeds. As S. Cyprian says (de Spectaculis) : “ No one will admire the works of men, who knows that he is the son of God. He who can admire anything after God, casts himself down from his high estate. When the flesh solicits thee, say, ‘I am a son of God, I am born to greater things than to be the slave of appetite ; ’ when the world tempts, reply, ‘I am a son of God, and destined for heavenly treasures, and it is beneath me to seek for a morsel of white or red earth.’ And when Satan offers me honour and pomps, I say, ‘Get thee behind me, for as being a son and heir of God, and born for a heavenly kingdom, I trample all worldly honours under my feet.’
Devote then the rest of thy life (it may be short indeed) to such noble, arduous, and divine works as Christ and the Saints have performed. Art thou called to a state of perfection, to devote thy life to the salvation of souls ? — art thou called to heathen lands, to the cross and martyrdom ? — surrender thyself to the call, as becomes the son of so great a father.” Alvarez (as De Ponte relates in his life) used to apply this stimulus to himself : “ Do not fall away from the lofty purposes of God's children.”
Therefore the world knoweth us not , because it knoweth Him not. It knows Him not practically, because worldly men do not love or worship Him. “ They know not that we are citizens of heaven (says S. Chrysostom), and associates of the Cherubim. But they shall know in the day of judgment.” (See Wisdom v. 3 seq.)
Ver. 2. — Beloved, now are we the sons of God , and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him . Not in nature but in quality, in happiness, in eternal glory. The world — which knows us not now, because it beholds not our inward beauty — will then know us as like Christ, perfectly holy, just, pure, loving God. And as God enjoys the vision of Himself, so will our mind behold Him as He is, will be blessed in the sight, and our sonship and adoption be thus perfected, when we attain as the sons of God our glorious and happy inheritance.
Observe. We are in three ways like God : — 1. As having a rational and intelligent nature. 2. By grace, as S. Bernard says, “consisting in virtues, and the soul strives by the greatness of its virtues to imitate the greatness of the supreme God, and by its constant perseverance in good to imitate His unchangeableness and eternity.” 3. The highest and most perfect resemblance to God will be by the beatific glory in heaven, when, as S. Bernard says, “ man becomes one spirit with God, not merely by unity of will, but more expressly by not being able to will anything beside, through union with His power.” This third resemblance then consists in the Vision of the Triune God. As S. John says, “We shall see Him as He is.” Accordingly, Œcumenius places this resemblance in the love and glory of adoption. See Ps. xvi. 11, xlvii. 9, xxvi. 4, xxxv. 10; 1 Cor. xiii. 12. The Schoolmen thence teach that the Blessed see the very Essence of God, Its three Persons and all Its attributes. For they behold Him in a vision, and draw Him as it were into themselves, and thus derive every good. Accordingly [Pseudo]-S. Augustine says (de cognit. veræ vitæ ad fin.), “This vision and this glory is called the kingdom of heaven because it is only the heavens, that is the just, who enjoy this vision, for theirs is the highest and chiefest Good in whom they have the fulness of joy from the fulness of all goods.”