Expositor's Bible: The Epistles of St. John

“The cross had touched his heart and will. That was all. It had changed his whole being. He is a living illustration of Paul’s teaching in this very letter. He is dead with Christ to his old self; he lives with Christ a new life. The gospel can do that. It can and does do so to-day and to us, if we will. Nothing else can; nothing else ever has done it; nothing else ever will. Culture may do much; social reformation may do much; but the radical transformation of the nature is only effected by the “love of God shed abroad in the heart,” and by the new life which we receive through our faith in Christ.””

— William Alexander

“He does not show Himself to us in order merely that we may know, but in order that, knowing, we may do, and, what is more than either knowing or doing, in order that we may be.””

— William Alexander

“But the name leads straight to the doctrine of regeneration, and proclaims that all Christians are born again through their faith in Jesus Christ, and thereby partake of a common new life, which makes all its possessors children of the Highest, and therefore brethren one of another. If regarded as an expression of the affection of Christians for one another, “brethren” is an exaggeration, ludicrous or tragic, as we view it; but if we regard it as the expression of the real bond which gathers all believers into one family, it declares the deepest mystery and mightiest privilege of the gospel””

— William Alexander