Not merely as a good man or even as a prophet, but as the Son of God, the Sent of God, the Messiah. John here brands as error the belief that simply because Christ died for all men, all will therefore be saved. Marked equally false is the belief that God predestines certain men to be saved and others to be damned. John emphatically declares that the decisive factor lies with men themselves—“as many” as receive and believe are granted access to sonship. Concerning predestination see further on Isa. 55:1; Eph. 1:5; Rev. 22:17.

 Gr. exousia, “authority,” “right,” “power of choice,” not dunamis, “power” in the usual sense. In ch. 5:27 exousia is rightly translated “authority.” Because of sin man had lost all his rights and deserved the penalty of death. The plan of salvation restored man’s opportunity to know God and to choose to serve Him.

God does not arbitrarily make men His sons; He enables them to become such if they so choose.

 Literally, “children of God,” which expression is a favorite with John (see John 11:52; 1 John 3:1, 2, 10; 5:2), who never, in the Greek, uses “sons of God” when referring to Christians. To become a son, or child, of God is to enter into the covenant relationship (see on Hosea 1:10) by the new birth (John 3:3).

 See on v. 7.

To believe on the name of another is not equivalent to believing him.

 The latter may simply mean that one gives credence to the words of another. The devils give credence to the fact that there is one God (James 2:19), but this is a very different experience from believing “on the name of God.” The former is an intellectual act; the latter a moral and spiritual one. To believe on the name of Christ is to appropriate the provisions of salvation in Christ Jesus. “Faith is the condition upon which God has seen fit to promise pardon to sinners; not that there is any virtue in faith whereby salvation is merited, but faith can lay hold of the merits of Christ, the remedy provided for sin” (EGW RH Nov. 4, 1890).

The word “name” is here used in an Aramaic idiomatic sense, meaning the person himself.