1 John2chapter 2

1 John 2:1

My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not states the letter's aim plainly against any reading of chapter one's confession as license. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous provides for the failure the aim does not remove: parakletos, the same word John's gospel uses of the Holy Spirit as Comforter, here the Son himself pleading the believer's cause before the Father. The righteous advocate is qualified to plead precisely because he shares nothing of the sin he intercedes for.

1 John 2:2

And he is the propitiation for our sins names the ground of the advocate's plea: hilasmos, the sacrifice that satisfies, not merely covers, God's righteous claim against sin. And not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world has drawn readings with real holders across church history, some teachers reading world as the elect scattered among every nation against John's own Jewish first readers, others reading it at its plain extent as at John 3:16, the atonement sufficient for all though efficient only for those who believe; the verse is taught here at its own strength, as at the parallel scope question in 1 Timothy 2:4.

1 John 2:3-4

Hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments opens the letter's long assurance vocabulary, ginosko meeting oida, knowledge as ongoing relationship confirmed by knowledge as settled fact. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar answers the secession's own boast directly, a claim of superior spiritual knowledge unaccompanied by obedience exposed as false at its root, the truth is not in him repeating chapter one's diagnosis of self-deceit.

1 John 2:5-6

But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected moves from the negative test to the positive, obedience the channel through which God's love reaches its intended completion in a life. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked sets the standard as high as it can be set, Christ's own earthly conduct the pattern for every claim of abiding, the imitation of Christ named here in its plainest New Testament form.

1 John 2:7-8

Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning names the love command of John 13:34 as old ground rather than novelty. Again, a new commandment I write unto you turns the same command new in its dawning application, because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth, the light-and-darkness thread from 1:5 pressed forward into an eschatological claim, the age of light already breaking in Christ even while the full day is not yet come.

1 John 2:9-11

He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now applies the light test to the second of the letter's three tests, love, the claim tested by conduct toward the brethren rather than by profession. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him, skandalon, no trap set for another's feet by a loving life, against the hating man who walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, blindness the wage of hatred, a moral rather than merely intellectual darkness.

1 John 2:12-14

little children: I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake opens a carefully structured address to three groups, twice repeated with the tense shifting from I write to I have written, teknia the whole family addressed first on the ground of forgiveness already accomplished. Fathers are addressed on their settled knowledge of him that is from the beginning, the mature grasp of Christ's eternity; young men on their strength and their overcoming of the wicked one, the word of God abiding in them the source of the victory, spiritual maturity measured not by age but by depth of grasp and strength in the fight.

1 John 2:15-17

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world uses kosmos in its ethical sense, the world system organized against God, carefully distinguished from the world God so loved in John 3:16 that he gave his Son. The lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life name a threefold pattern many teachers trace back to Eden, Eve seeing that the tree was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and desired to make one wise, and forward to the wilderness temptations of the Lord, the same triad tested and refused. The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever sets the whole appeal on the ground of what actually lasts.

1 John 2:18-19

Little children, it is the last time introduces the antichrist teaching proper, ye have heard that antichrist shall come naming a single coming figure the letter's readers already expected, the futurist posture this site holds elsewhere for that figure's final appearing. Even now are there many antichrists names a present plurality, forerunners bearing the same spirit rather than the man himself. They went out from us, but they were not of us reads the secession theologically rather than merely historically, professed membership without regenerate union the reason for a departure that only proved what had been true all along.

1 John 2:20-21

But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things answers the secession's claim to superior knowledge with the ordinary believer's own resource, chrisma, the Spirit's anointing given at conversion rather than a rare mystical attainment. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it clarifies the letter's own purpose, not to supply knowledge the readers lack but to confirm and apply what the anointing has already taught them, no lie is of the truth the discernment the anointing supplies.

1 John 2:22-23

Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ names the confession test at its sharpest, the denial the secession's own teaching, and states its full theological cost: he is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: but he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also closes the point with a logic the letter repeats throughout, the Father and the Son so bound together that no one may claim one while refusing the other.

1 John 2:24-25

Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning returns to the letter's watchword of abiding, continuance in the apostolic teaching the safeguard against the secession's novelty. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father makes abiding conditional in form but pastoral in aim, an appeal rather than a threat, and this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life names the reward waiting on that continuance.

1 John 2:26-27

These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you names the whole preceding warning's target plainly, the secession's teachers still active among the readers. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you returns to 2:20's chrisma and must be read against the letter's own act of teaching, the elder himself instructing his readers at length; the anointing makes the church discerning of false teaching rather than teacher-less, guarding believers from being led away by novel doctrine rather than excusing them from all instruction, is truth, and is no lie the anointing's own character.

1 John 2:28-29

And now, little children, abide in him turns the chapter's teaching toward the Lord's return, that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming, parousia, abiding practiced now so as to meet that day without shrinking. If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him closes the chapter on the first of the three tests, righteousness of life the mark of the new birth, and opens the ground the next chapter builds on directly.