1Jn 5:2-5:5 - Love Brings Obedience

Calvin

5:2: As love to God cannot but express itself in love to man, so love to man is not properly founded unless in it love to God holds primacy. This love to God will, as a matter of course, willingly obey God's commands, for God who is love is also righteous and that righteousness requires our reverence. Obedience to the Law without love (i.e. - due to fear) is not true obedience. Love must come first. (Dt 10:12 - God requires only that we fear (reverence), love, and obey Him, heart and soul.)
5:3: That His commandments are not grievous is noted to help us persevere when we grow weary. Why, then, do we often find it otherwise? (Ac 15:10 - For even Scripture itself points out that the Law is a burden too heavy for us.) This is in part because self-denial must precede obedience. This, too, is difficult for us because it is a spiritual action, and we are flesh. (Ro 7:14 - the Law is spiritual, but we are fallen flesh.) The blame lies in our flesh. In God's children - those renewed by His Spirit working within - the Pauline view of the Law as a heavy burden grows into the Davidian view of the Law as sweet. The Law is easy inasmuch as the Spirit brings us victory over the lusts of the flesh, for we who are renewed can no longer find enjoyment except in following God. In the end, our strength in pursuing the Law comes of knowing we obey a forgiving Father. (Ps 130:4 - He is forgiving, allowing us to offer Him the reverence He deserves rather than abject fear.) But still, we must fight off the world to keep the Law.
5:4: Our victory over the flesh comes of faith. Though the battles come every moment of every day on every side, yet we are equipped by God, and our faith is such, that victory is already ours in the midst of conflict. This assurance of victory is not to make us complacent, but to stir us to greater courage. We are to be confident, but not overly secure. Seeing as our opponents are every person or thing that turns us away from God, we would be overwhelmed before we started if not for God's perpetual promise of victory. That victory is of faith alone. It has none of our strength - which is useless against such odds - and belongs to God alone.
5:5: Without faith in Jesus as Christ - a full apprehension of His role and power - we cannot overcome. (Phil 3:13 - through Him - His strength strengthening us - we can do all things, even overcome our own flesh.) Only in resting in Christ's power will we find the power to overcome.

Matthew Henry

5:2-5:5: We see the truth of our love when that love (as expressed to others) is not due to their position or nature, but simply because they are God's. Thus, true love for others loves God through them. True love for God will delight in keeping His commandments. As His love fills our hearts, we will not only seek to obey, but will find joy in doing so. (Ps 119:32 - He will enable our hearts to keep His commandments.) As we are born of God, we are born for Him, and for His world. Faith is the means, the armor and artillery, the cause of victory. In faith, we hold this world in contempt as we contemplate and cleave to Christ. Faith works in and by the love of God, which turns our love from this world. Faith sanctifies - cleansing us from distracting lusts. Faith gets its strength from its object - the Son of God - more than sufficient to conquer the world. Faith obtains the promise of indwelling grace - greater than the world's ruler. Faith sees God's kingdom at hand, and holds us prepared to enter at any time. The world is an impediment to our entrance into heaven, but faith knows Jesus to be the Savior of the world - sent by God to conduct us to God in His power. Such faith will recognize this world as an enemy to one's holiness and salvation, for the pride of life is of the world. That we have been rescued from this world, faith sees as a great work of the Savior (Gal 1:4 - He gave Himself to the will of God to save us.) Faith takes as its model the life of Jesus, which showed that the world is to be renounced and overcome. Faith sees that Christ overcame the world for all who would follow Him. Faith sees in Jesus' death that it must be crucified to this world (Gal 6:14 - Through Christ - and only through Christ - the world is crucified and dead to us.) Faith knows us begotten unto hope and the world to come. (1Pe 1:3 - we are reborn to a living hope through the resurrection of Christ.) Faith knows that Jesus is in heaven preparing our place, and will return to judge this world, and receive us into His presence. (Jn 14:2-3 - because He said so.) Faith cannot be satisfied here, but looks ever beyond this world to the heavenly world. (2Co 5:2 - we long for our heavenly dwelling.) In this faith, we find true doctrine which is contrary to this world, by which doctrine the superior spirit of the godly is infused and overwhelms the spirit of the world in us. The kingdom we so fight for is not in this world, for Christ promises to take us out and into His kingdom. This is the victory we fight for, the victory we are assured of, the victory we are promised, the victory that will satisfy as no other accomplishment ever did or can. Those who have preceded us encourage us to join them in that victory, for only in Christ Jesus can the world be overcome, and in Christ Jesus, the world cannot help but be overcome.

Adam Clarke

5:2: The keeping of God's commandments is proof that we love Him, without which love we couldn't love others. Thus, we have now a dual proof of our love to God.
5:3: Love to God necessarily produces obedience to His will. To love God and neighbor are not burdensome to the believer, for they are the commands of his own love. Love to God brings strength from God, making the keeping of His commandments easy and delightful. Only in loving Him can we worship Him, and in such loving worship He receives us as His beloved.
5:4: The world represents the Jewish church because both denied the Messiah, and the proofs offered are such as counter Jewish reasoning, not Gentile. Ergo, true faith can overcome the falsehoods held to by the Jewish religion. [Boy, this is a stretch.] Or, maybe it refers to all that is in the world, when it says "the world", in which case we are overcoming the desires of the flesh, of the eye, and the pride of life [which somehow, seems much more reasonable in the context of this letter.]
5:5: Belief believes that Jesus is the promised Messiah; truly man, yet not come of man, but of the Holy Spirit. Such belief, and only such belief, has the privilege of obtaining the benefits of Messiah's work.

Barnes

5:2: Knowing by other proofs that we truly love God (in this case, by our keeping His commandments), allows us certainty that our love for our brothers is properly motivated, and not based on something in their nature. (Jn 14:15 - love of Christ leads to obedience to His commands.)
5:3: Obedience furnishes evidence of our love, and finds it not burdensome to obey. (Mt 11:30 - Obedience to Christ is easy and light in that it is a joy for us to do so.) We find Christ's rule to be reasonable and not oppressive, whereas we find the laws of the world - fashion, honor, and the like - to be most tyrannical. (Jn 8:32 - God's truth sets us free from the bondage of the world's rules.)
5:4: Where there is true regeneration, the victory already obtains. The maxims and customs of the world are overcome by the truths of religion, and the maxims and customs of religion now reign. Where this is not so, regeneration has not come. (Jn 16:33 - Jesus has overcome the world. Jas 4:4 - To maintain friendship with the world is to be an enemy to God.) Our faith in Christ who overcame the world makes us one with Him, and fills us with His Spirit enabling us to overcome as well.
5:5: Only in belief in the Savior can we find complete victory. Outside of such belief some partial victory may obtain - freedom from a particular sin, or departure from bad company; but the complete subordination of all that is worldly to a higher goal can only come of faith in Christ. The nature of those who obtain such partial victories as the disappointments of life may afford is belied by their reaction to such disappointments. That they are left broken and cheerless by these situations shows that the world's spirit still reigns within. Such situations are quickly forgotten by these, as the tides of life turn. But if, by God's grace, they are led to find refuge in the blood of Christ by their circumstance, then a true and full victory is obtained by grace, and their soul is fully and eternally changed.

Wycliffe

5:2-5:3: Love God, love His children. Love His children, love God. It's an equality. Love makes God's commandments light in the believer.
5:4-5:5: The victory we have in overcoming the world makes such love of the brethren possible. This victory is continually overcoming, for we are continually in battle with the world. Yet the victory is an accomplished fact, and thus is assured from the outset. This victory is in our faith in Jesus as fully God and fully man.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

5:2: Tested love to God is the only real basis for our brotherly love. Our obedience brings us inward confirmation that our love for our brothers is true and proper. By nature, it is easier for us to love our brother, but by grace, our love for them must find its foundation on our greater love for God.
5:3: When we love God, His commands will not seem grievous to us. (Pr 13:15 - in contrast, the transgressor's path is difficult.) Faith gives us the strength to find God's commands light, as it overcomes the flesh's natural rebelliousness.
5:4: Knowing by faith that we can obey, we remain joyful in spite of present conflict, knowing our regeneration must bring victory. (Ps 119:77 - His law is our delight. Ps 119:92 - Were it not, we'd be dead. Ps 119:111 - His law is our inheritance, and the joy of our heart. Ps 119:174 - and our delight.) Everything and everyone that God has regenerated may be considered as a single, universal whole. (Jn 3:6 - all that is born of the Spirit is spirit. Jn 6:37 - all that the Father gives to Christ come to Him, Jn 6:39 - and all such He will not lose, but shall raise up on the last day.) The regenerate habitually overcome all that opposes the keeping of God's commandments or draws us away from Him. Faith has already obtained that overcoming victory once for all.
5:5: By believing (by faith) we are made one with Jesus, and through Jesus we are made victorious, as we are infilled by One who is greater. (Ro 8:33-35 - God justifies, Christ intercedes, and nothing can separate us from His love. This is what faith believes.) There cannot be such a one who has truly overcome all that is the world who does not have this faith.

New Thoughts

There are times when I find my love suspect by the test presented here. But then I'm reminded how far those I love are from what I would have thought loveable years ago. And yet, there remain those who are a challenge to me, those for whom I have difficulty finding a loving thought. And so much of that, it occurs to me right now, is jealousy and pride rearing up within. God, this ought not to be! I know the dangers of pride, and jealousy is really just pride in yet another form. Oh, Lord, free me from this! Let my pride be only in knowing You. I have forgotten. I have allowed my self to be in the way. Oh, God, must the breaking come again? Is there yet another crushing that must occur that I may be freed from this? Oh, that there were a gentler way, but the flesh remains rebellious to the end, doesn't it? God, it's clear to me. All too often, I want to turn the discussion to my situation, my problems, my successes, my discoveries in Your word. It's all a weakly disguised "look at me", isn't it? Oh Lord, I used to pride myself on listening, but I really don't listen do I? I'm just looking for the chance to turn the conversation back to me. What is that insecurity in me that requires so much recognition? What is the cause, oh Lord? Make it clear to me, bring it home so that it can be dealt with once for all. For You, Jesus, have already obtained the solution. In Your strength I can overcome this problem. Is my faith strong enough? I don't know. But I know Your strength is strong enough to hold me up even as You walk me through the trouble. Even as You do what You must (and I ask You now to do so, once more), You are there to hold me. Even then You assure me that by Your work in me I'll still be standing when it's over. God, I want that! I want the change that You must bring in me, so that I can truly love as You love me.