1 John 2:5-6

⁵ But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.

⁶ He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.

keeps His word (v.5) — Here the stress is on “keepeth”; in v.4 it was on “commandments.” His word (logos) is the whole, of which His commandments are the parts. It is the complete Divine Revelation. — Vine, page 24.

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the love of God (v.5) … is not merely objective, love to God; that is but the counterpart of the love of God to us (subjective); the one is the answer to the other. The love evinced by the believer finds its source in, and derives its nature from, God’s love. Thus here “the love of God” is the exercise of God’s love manifesting itself in the human heart and live in practical love towards God and our fellow men. This is confirmed in 4:10-11. Love is the fulfilling of God’s commandments, which are summed up in the one commandment concerning love, and in the fulfilment of this, the love of God is (or has been) perfected in us. Love has thus attained to its end. Selfishness and carnal desires are banished, and the will of God is carried out both in us and through us to others. — Vine, page 24.

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in Him (v.5) — The condition of being “in Him” is not a matter of absorption into Deity, as Pantheism teaches, but of spiritual relationship and unity of life, which involves the removal of the alienation of man in his unregenerate state from God, and the enjoyment of fellowship with God and oneness with Him in His will and purpose. — Vine, page 25.

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Being “in Him” is akin to knowing Him (v.3), and both refer to eternal salvation. — Grace, page 2219.

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know (v.5) = The assurance is not by way of contrast to doubt, but is simply a statement of a constantly enjoyed experience. — Vine, page 25.

ought (v.6) — suggests the idea of a debt, a duty incumbent on the one who “says he abides in Him.

The believer is to walk as He walked (v.6). He is sanctified unto the obedience of Jesus. He obeys on the same principles as those on which Jesus obeyed. It is the obedience of a life to which it is natural and delightful to do the will of God. A Child submits to the will of the parent, but Christ did not obey in that way. He came to do the will of God. Obedience was His mode of being and the law of His being. Tis great inward principle, that is, the Divine nature operating in the believer, motivates and characterizes his life. Only those who possess that new nature can understand this principle of obedience. — Williams, page 1011.