"He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him."
1 John 2:10
“He that loveth his brother abideth in the light,”
The true disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ is known by his genuine “love one for another” (John 13:35). And here John is speaking in a more fundamental sense, the lover of his brother is “in the light.” John speaks of the closeness of our fellowship with God as being based on our relationship to evil (sin, darkness), and our relationship to our obedience to Christ (being in the light).
“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:5-7).
If we hate our brother, we cannot say that we have fellowship with God. If we love our brother, we do have fellowship with our God, and we are “walking in the light.”
The loving brother abides in the light. To abide is to remain, stay, dwell, etc. Thayer says, “to continue to be present,”1 this is where the “loving brother” is, “in the light.”
“And there is none occasion of stumbling in him.”
The Cambridge Bible gives four possible meanings of this phrase.
“There are several ways of taking this.
1. He has in him nothing likely to ensnare him or cause him to stumble.
2. He has in him nothing likely to cause others to stumble.
3. There is in his case nothing likely to cause stumbling.
4. In the light there is nothing likely to cause stumbling…”2
And then the Cambridge Bible gives reasons from the Greek text why each of these ideas may be valid. It seems to me that the last two thoughts are evident because of the nature of “stumbling” and “the light.” Come back tomorrow and let’s look at these first two statements and how the believer relates to sin in his life.
1. J.H. Thayer, Thayer’s Greek Definitions, the electronic version in eSword. This is only one of his definitions.
2. Cambridge Bible, the electronic version in eSword.