1Jo 2:9-10 | JFB | STEP | 9-11. There is no mean between light and darkness, love and hatred, life and death, God and the world: wherever spiritual life is, however weak, there darkness and death no longer reign, and love supplants hatred; and holds good: wherever life is not, there death, darkness, the flesh, the world, and hatred, however glossed over and hidden from man's observation, prevail; and holds good. "Where love is not, there hatred is; for the heart cannot remain a void" [BENGEL ]. in the light —as his proper element. his brother —his neighbor, and especially those of the Christian brotherhood. The very title "brother" is a reason why love should be exercised. even until now —notwithstanding that "the true light already has begun to shine" ( ).

1 John 2:9-10

9-11. There is no mean between light and darkness, love and hatred, life and death, God and the world: wherever spiritual life is, however weak, there darkness and death no longer reign, and love supplants hatred; and Lu 9:50 holds good: wherever life is not, there death, darkness, the flesh, the world, and hatred, however glossed over and hidden from man's observation, prevail; and Lu 11:23 holds good. "Where love is not, there hatred is; for the heart cannot remain a void" [BENGEL].

in the light—as his proper element.

his brother—his neighbor, and especially those of the Christian brotherhood. The very title "brother" is a reason why love should be exercised.

even until now—notwithstanding that "the true light already has begun to shine" (1Jo 2:8).

10. Abiding in love is abiding in the light; for the Gospel light not only illumines the understanding, but warms the heart into love.

none occasion of stumbling—In contrast to, "He that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes." "In him who loves there is neither blindness nor occasion of stumbling [to himself]: in him who does not love, there is both blindness and occasion of stumbling. He who hates his brother, is both a stumbling-block to himself, and stumbles against himself and everything within and without; he who loves has an unimpeded path" [BENGEL]. John has in mind Jesus' words, Joh 11:9, 10. ALFORD well says, "The light and the darkness are within ourselves; admitted into us by the eye, whose singleness fills the whole body with light."