1 John 5:16

If any man see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and God will give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: not concerning this do I say that he should make request.

If any man see his brother sinning a sin not unto death ... Presumably, this would be any kind of sin except apostasy; but what makes this passage difficult is the problem of Christian brothers monitoring each other's behavior. The ability always to know when a brother is sinning is not in Christians; and that fact limits the admonition here to what is clearly visible to all and unmistakable.

And God will give him life for them ... Before Christians may be forgiven of their sins, they themselves must repent and ask the Father's mercy and pardon; therefore, God's giving life for them that sin cannot be solely upon the grounds of another's asking it. Perhaps that limitation is understood in John's promise here of such great efficacy in the prayers of Christians for one another.

For them that sin not unto death ... There are a number of New Testament passages that deal with the "sin unto death," namely, the passage here, 1 Corinthians 11:30; 1 Thessalonians 5:19; 1 Timothy 5:6; Hebrews 6:4-6; Hebrews 10:26,27; 2 Peter 2:20,21, and Mark 3:29 with parallel in Matthew. For a complete discussion of this question see in my Commentary on Mark, pp. 65-67, and, in my Commentary on Matthew, pp. 173-175, and, in my Commentary on Hebrews, pp. 125-128. Briefly stated, the sin unto death is that which results in the total apostasy of the sinner, leading to a state which is hopeless, not because of any limitation on God's part, but because of the will of the sinner not to accept pardon.

I do not say that he should make request ... This carries the meaning of, "Let him not pray for it."[19]

We have already pointed out that in all ordinary circumstances, no Christian could possibly know whether or not one had committed a sin "unto death" or not; and, with that in mind, the interpretation of Bruce on this difficult passage is certainly entitled to be studied.

He wrote:

I suggest that the sin unto death is quite literally a sin with death as its consequence; and the only way in which it may be known that a sin is "unto death" is if death actually ensues. What John is doing, in that case, is to make it plain that he does not advocate praying for the dead.[20]

Bruce's understanding of this seems to this writer the most reasonable of all the explanations encountered. Bruce admitted the possibility that apostasy could be the thing in view, adding "but this I doubt." The explanation advocated by him would certainly solve the problem of a brother's "seeing" whether or not sin was "unto death"; and, in the context, this would appear to be determinative.

Plummer, and others who favor the view that apostasy is meant, have written some very helpful words regarding the power of apostates to rebel against God and spurn his love. For example:

The prayer of one human being can never cancel another's free-will. If God's will does not override man's will, neither can a fellow-man's prayer. When a human will has been firmly and persistently set in opposition to the Divine will, our intercession will be of no avail.[21]

Macknight limited the meaning of this verse to those situations in the early church which were analogous to that mentioned in James 4:14f, affirming that this verse is directed not to ordinary Christians at all, but to:

Any spiritual man (endowed with the charismatic gift of healing diseases); and that the brother for whom the spiritual man was to ask life, was not every brother who had sinned, but the brother only who had been punished with a mortal disease; but who having repented of his sin, it was not a sin unto death; and that the life to be asked and received on behalf of such a brother was not eternal life at all, but a miraculous recovery from the mortal disease from which he was suffering.[22]

In support of his thesis, which may indeed be correct, Macknight argued that the clause, "And God will give him life for them" could not possibly refer to eternal life, since "Nowhere in Scripture is eternal life promised to be given to any sinner, at the asking of another."[23]

Having given three different interpretations of this difficult Scripture, we shall leave it as one that might reasonably bear any of the three explanations. There are difficult questions connected with any view of it.

Before leaving this verse, it should be pointed out, however, that:

To divide sins, on the authority of this passage, into venial and mortal classifications, is to misunderstand the whole argument of the Epistle and to seduce the conscience. St. John only means that though prayer can do much for an erring brother, there is a willfulness against which it would be powerless: for even prayer is not stronger than free-will.[24]

[19] John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament (Naperville, Illinois: Alec. R. Allenson, Inc., reprint, 1950), p. 919.

[20] F. F. Bruce, op. cit., p. 134.

[21] A. Plummer, op. cit., p. 142.

[22] James Macknight, op. cit., p. 118.

[23] Ibid., p. 119.

[24] W. M. Sinclair, op. cit., p. 493.