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Published by
OrthodoxyToday.org,
June 8, 2005
Let Not
Our Love Be Just A Lot Of Talk |
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Fr. Patrick
Reardon
Among the many parts of Holy
Scripture that merit closer regard with respect to
grammar, I would include St. John's simple
admonition, "My little children, let us not love
in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth" (1
John 3:18).
In John's combination "word and
tongue" we readily recognize what grammarians call
a hendiadys, which means that John conveys a
single idea by a double expression. That is to
say, in John's "in word or in tongue" there is no
real difference between "word" and "tongue"; both
are metaphors for speech. John means simply, "Let
not our love be just a lot of talk."
Now respecting "word and
tongue," these comments are perhaps too obvious to
require critical attention. Let me suggest,
however, that our parsing should be carried over
to John's second pair of words, "deed and truth."
It is important to see that this second
combination is likewise a hendiadys. In context,
both expressions mean the identical thing. In
regard to love, there is no real difference
between truth and deeds. The truth of love is
composed of what we do.
To the extent that love has a
"truth," love is also knowable. How, then, are we
to know the truth of love? Empirically, because
the truth of love is indistinguishable from the
deeds of love. Thus, John says in the very next
verse: "And by this we know that we are of the
truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him"
(3:19). This is pretty standard doctrine in John.
In his Gospel, for instance, Jesus says
succinctly, "If you love Me, keep My commandments"
(John 14:15). And again, "He who has My
commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves
Me" (14:21).
In the thought of John this
moral observance is very much related to the
Christian's sense of personal assurance. "Now by
this we know that we know Him," says John, "if we
keep His commandments. He who says, 'I know Him,'
and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and
the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His
word, truly the love of God is perfected in him.
By this we know that we are in Him" (1 John
2:3-5).
How can I know that I am in
God? How do I be sure that I really know God? John
answers these questions by urging us, not to
analyze the quality of our consciousness, much
less our emotional state, but to observe the
empirical data of our conduct. It's really very
simple, says John. Just check the evidence.
John's approach in this respect
is entirely practical. He regards a person's
conduct--how he walks--as the reliable barometer
of that person's spiritual condition: "He who says
he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just
as He walked" (2:6). Again, "If you know that He
is righteous, you know that everyone who does [ho
poion] righteousness is born of Him" (2:29, my
translation). For John, then, being righteous
means "doing righteousness."
The Christian life, in short,
is not just a secure state of mind, still less a
reassured emotional condition. It includes also
righteousness of conduct, and to some degree our
conduct--including what we permit ourselves to
think--is open to observation. If we want to know
if we are in God, says John, the best indicators
are our deeds.
In John's insistence on this
point, we perceived a resemblance to James, who
declared that "a man is justified by works, not by
faith only" (James 2:24). Both writers may also be
compared to Paul, who said, "and though I have all
faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have
not love, I am nothing" (1 Corinthians 13:2).
If Christian faith is more than
an intellectual state or emotional condition, this
is also true of Christian love. It must do certain
things, says John. He inquires rhetorically, "But
whoever has this world's goods, and sees his
brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him,
how does the love of God abide in him?" (1 John
3:17).
In both his concrete example
and in posing his thesis as a rhetorical question,
John further resembles James, who uses the
identical example in a series of three rhetorical
questions: "[1]What does it profit, my brethren,
if someone says he has faith but does not have
works? [2] Can faith save him? [3] If a brother or
sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and
one of you says to them, 'Depart in peace, be
warmed and filled,' but you do not give them the
things which are needed for the body, what does it
profit?" (James 2:14-16).
Fr. Patrick
Henry Reardon is an Orthodox priest in the
Antiochian Archdiocese of America and serves on
the editorial board of
Touchstone magazine.
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