The Elder concludes his message of exhortation to the remaining faithful members of his community by assuring them of several certainties of the Christian life, with regard to possessing eternal life (13), asking and interceding in prayer (14–17), not sinning (18), being God’s children in an evil world (19), and knowing Jesus Christ, the true God (20). In the light of these great realities comes a final warning (21).

5:13 Continuing his style of linking the beginning of a new section with the end of the previous one (see the note on 5:4b), the writer carries over the concepts of eternal life and the title, the Son of God, into his concluding statement of purpose for writing this letter. I write (lit., “I wrote”; egrapsa, an example of the epistolary aorist; see also 2:13c, 14, 21, 26) for…