I write to you, children, because [your] sins are forgiven you for his name's sake.
John writes here to the whole family of God at once, before he notes what marks out the babe from the father. Everything that follows rests on one settled fact: their sins are forgiven. And nothing in them explains why.
The English translation hides a distinction in the original.
There are in this letter two words both translated "little children." The one used in 1 John 2:12 and 28 is simply "children." It takes in all believers, since all are children of God. The other, used in 1 John 2:13 and 18, is really "babes," the beginners in the Christian life.
So John is not writing to the immature only. That breadth answers a worry any reader of this letter may feel.
Verse 12 removes all difficulty about whom the apostle writes. The letter says startling things, and the question might arise: are these things really true of me? But this verse gives a complete answer to those who will receive it... He will notice the different traits that mark their spiritual condition. But from the babe to the father they are alike objects of mercy.
The word carries a simple picture.
It signifies simply "a sending away" or "a release," and this is just what a guilty sinner needs regarding his sins. Let them be sent away or dismissed by the One against whom his guilt was incurred, and what a happy release is his! Now this is just what every child of God is entitled to enjoy.
The reason is not any good thing found in the believer. It is the worth of another Person to God.
We learn from it that in the forgiveness of sins God acts solely on the ground of the value of the name of His beloved Son — the name of the One who glorified Him on the earth and finished the work He gave Him to do. What misconceptions this simple truth would clear away from the minds of anxious souls! For then they would stop spending weary days searching for some good thing, or merit, in themselves — something to rest on for acceptance before God, or as sure proof of their conversion. They would see that if they are to be saved it must be wholly through what Christ is to God.
Because the reason lies outside us, the security does too.
Here is eternal forgiveness, an established fact for every child of God. It does not come from any favourable work or virtue on the child's part. It comes "for His name's sake" — the Name of the blessed Son of God, a Name of infinite value and perfection! Is there any possibility of this forgiveness losing its power? Never! For it depends on that Name, which can never be even slightly dimmed in the eyes of God the Father.
Notice the little word "because." John does not write so that they may become forgiven; He writes because they already are.
He begins by calling all the Christians he was writing to "children," a term of affection from the loving and aged apostle. As he writes to them so that they should not sin, he also writes because all their sins were forgiven for Jesus' name's sake. This was the assured condition of all Christians — what God had granted them in giving them faith, so that they might glorify Him. He allows no doubt as to the fact of their being pardoned. He writes to them because they are so.
Doubt on this point does practical damage.
Remember: if you are not clear that your sins are forgiven, if there is the smallest lurking doubt in your soul about it, how can you walk as a forgiven person? It makes a vast difference. A person who really knows he is forgiven has motives, reasons, for acting which he could not otherwise have. You cannot have really right motives unless you know that.
- The Name is the cause. Forgiveness rests on the worth of God's Son to God, not on anything found in the person forgiven.
- The Name gives the gift. "Forgiven" means a sending away: the One we sinned against dismisses our sins and releases us.
- The Name reaches everyone. "Children" here covers the whole family — babe and father alike are objects of mercy.
- The Name settles doubt. John states pardon as a settled fact and allows no question about it. Forgiveness held by that Name can never lose its power.
- The Name shapes the walk. Only a person who knows he is forgiven can act from right motives; without that knowledge, he cannot have them.
I write to you, fathers, because ye have known him [that is] from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked [one]. I write to you, little children, because ye have known the Father.
John divides the family of believers into three groups: fathers, young men, and children. Each group is named by what it already knows or has done — which raises the question of what real growth looks like, and whether some believers hold blessings the rest do not.
English hides a distinction here. Older versions translate two different words in this chapter as "little children," and only one of them marks out a group within the family.
There are two words in this letter, both translated "little children." The one used in 1 John 2:12 and 28 is simply "children." It takes in all believers, since all are children of God. The other, used in 1 John 2:13 and 18, is really "babes," the beginners in the Christian life.
The three names come from ordinary family life: a child grows into a young man, and a young man becomes a father. But one stage of natural life is missing.
The little children are those in whom life is only beginning to develop. The young men are those who have reached, or are reaching, maturity. The fathers are fully mature, ripe in everything Christianity means. Notice there are no "old men" here. There is no hint of feebleness or decay at all. The life is eternal, and this may and does need development, but in it there is no decline.
Each "because" in this verse describes the readers themselves.
Verse 13 states the characteristic features of those to whom he writes, not the themes he writes about, nor the basis on which he writes.
What stands out about the fathers is what John does not credit them with.
They had "known Him that was from the beginning." This, as we have seen, is the great text of the whole letter. It is all the more remarkable that he does not mention any depths or heights of knowledge. Not a word is said about dispensations, or prophecy, or anything thought to be difficult. One thing stood above all the rest and included everything else: Christ Himself. The fathers were those marked by knowing Him. Wherever they may have learned, and however far their energy once reached, they came back to what they started with — even Christ.
Their mark is a battle already behind them.
They had overcome the subtle traps the devil sets through teachings that oppose Christ. They overcame by being built up in the Word of God. In our earlier years as believers, we have not yet had time to be well grounded in the teachings of the Word. So we are far more likely to be led away by subtle teaching that goes against the Word, and to be overcome by the wicked one.
Their weapon is not new. Christ Himself used it when the enemy came to Him.
He brings out the secret of strength for them — the word of God, in the middle of this world, where God acknowledges nothing as His own. The word of God shows God's way in a world where there is none. That is the word by which Christ Himself overcame. The wicked one came and offered Him all the kingdoms of the world, and He answered by the word — He overcame the wicked one.
The youngest in the family are not left waiting for the best blessing.
This is true of the young men and the fathers too, of course. But John says it with emphasis about the babes: they know the Father. Nothing is more foreign to the whole truth of Christianity than the idea that a person should be ignorant of his relationship with the Father. It is the privilege and right of every Christian, even a babe, and nothing can take it away.
A baby shows how such knowledge can be real while still small.
In natural life, a baby knows its father long before it can speak. Years before it can understand the fulness of his love, the baby knows the father himself. This knowledge is the instinct of nature. The father's arms, the father's chest, the father's voice and smile are the baby's joy.
In verse 14 John speaks to the fathers again — and adds nothing new.
Only the verb form is different: in verse 13 he says "I write," and in verse 14 he says "I wrote," referring to what he had already said. And why this? Why has he no more to say to them? Because it was not a matter of things flowing out from God, as men imagined; here all the fulness of the Godhead lived in bodily form... The very idea of something more denied that fulness, and was a lie of Satan.
- One family. All believers are God's children. In this verse, "babes" names the youngest group inside that family, not the whole family.
- Start — the Father. The very first thing true of a new believer is knowing the Father. No one grows into it.
- Middle — the Word. Young men have already won a victory over the wicked one. They won it by the Word of God living in them — the same weapon Christ used.
- End — Christ Himself. Fathers are not marked by rare or difficult knowledge. They are marked by coming back to the One they began with — Christ Himself.
- No old age. The list has fathers but no old men; this life develops, yet it never weakens or declines.
I have written to you, fathers, because ye have known him [that is] from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and ye have overcome the wicked [one].
In this verse John speaks a second time to the same three groups. The fathers hear the very words they heard before, while the young men hear something added: why they are strong, and what they have already overcome.
Verses 13 and 14 name three groups. One writer sets them side by side and says what marks each.
The forgiveness of sins in verse 12 is a blessing shared by all the children of God. Yet there are measures of growth among them, as verse 13 shows — "fathers," "young men," and "babes." The first are mature in their knowledge of Christ, and of all that has been shown in Him. The second are marked by victory over the adversary by the word of God. The third are marked by the simple knowledge of the Father, which is where we all start at the beginning of our Christian lives.
To the fathers John says nothing new. One writer asks why, and finds the answer in who Christ is.
In verse 13 we read, "I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning" — Christ as He was shown here. John does not go into God's plans from eternity, nor look forward to the future glories of Christ. There is not one word different but in the verbal form: in verse 13 he says I "write," and in verse 14 he says "wrote," referring to what he had already said. Why has he no more to say to them? Because it was now in Him, a Man, that God embodied and showed the fullness of His grace and truth. This had never happened before, and it never needed to happen here again. The very notion of something more denied that fullness, and was a lie of Satan.
Believers often speak of their weakness. The verse says something different, and one writer presses the point.
Now here is a Bible statement. Very often the language of our souls is, "Oh, how weak we are!" Well, in ourselves we are more than weak. But it is a great thing to see the place and the power God gives us. I find here that the young men are strong. I think the secret of their strength is this: "The word of God abides in you." The evidence of their power is this: they know and keep the word of God.
The clause about the word is the one thing added beyond verse 13. Note the verb: it abides.
Observe, first of all, that there is an addition not found in the 13th verse, giving the real secret of their strength. The word of God abides in them. They did not merely turn to the word in an emergency, under pressure of difficulty and trial. His revelation was always abiding in them. This is exactly what we find in the Lord Jesus... When the devil tempted Him, the word was His answer; and if the enemy quoted it for evil, He replied with Scripture for good and truth.
Abiding is more than memory. It describes what the word does once it is inside.
The word cannot abide in me unless I know it. I must read it. I must get to know it. Not only in the mind — it is excellent to store it in the memory by constant reading — but so that the truth the word carries dawns upon the inward eye of my soul. Then the word gets into my affections. I love it. I treasure it. It commands my conscience. It begins to extend its governing power over my life. That is where strength lies. That is the way of victory over the wicked one.
The enemy in view here works by teaching, not by force. Where the ESV says "evil one," the older translation quoted below says "wicked one."
To have "overcome the wicked one" refers especially to overcoming his efforts to lead people away by false teaching. Verse 14 makes this clear. Through the abiding word of God, young men have strength — and it is by this means alone that they have any power to overcome the wicked one.
The command not to love the world comes right after this verse. John aims it at the group he has just called strong.
It is worth noticing who gets the warning against the world in 1 John 2. John gives it to the "young men," not to the "little children" or the "fathers." He gives it, that is, to those in the middle stage of Christian growth and experience. Let us all take home the warning.
- Growth — Forgiveness belongs to every believer alike; growth does not. John names three stages, and every Christian starts as a babe knowing the Father.
- Word — One clause is added for the young men, and it explains the rest: the word of God abides in them.
- Abides — The word is not just grabbed in a crisis. It reaches the affections and the conscience, and then it governs the life.
- Strength — Because the word abides, they are strong. Scripture states this as fact, whatever they feel about their own weakness.
- Overcome — The evil one is beaten where he attacks: in false teaching. Yet the strong are the ones warned next about loving the world.
Love not the world, nor the things in the world. If any one love the world, the love of the Father is not in him;
John writes this command to God's family, and he aims it at the strong. He has just praised these readers for overcoming the evil one. Three questions follow. What is "the world"? Why is loving it the problem, rather than living in it? And why does John set it against the love of the Father?
The order matters. The young men have already beaten Satan in open fight. A quieter danger opens right there.
The young men were strong. They were in the vigour of life. They had heard the word of God and kept it. They had put the enemy to flight in the open field and overcome the wicked one. But if he could not meet them face to face, he had another way to ruin them... Here was where the young men might fail. In a fair fight they were invincible, but the enemy had cunning tricks, and the world is a subtle snare.
The trap is self-confidence — the sense that strength earns a licence to dabble.
A man strong enough to overcome Satan may — sadly — still be overcome by the world's attractions. He may even feel strong enough to join in some worldly practice without it harming him. Sad delusion! For the very indulgence only shows the painful decay of his strength: he is already influenced.
The word does not mean the planet, nor the people God loves. It points to an arrangement of life.
The New Testament uses the word "world" in several different ways. Here it does not mean the people who make up the world — "For God so loved the world." It means an organised system of things. Its origin, its driving principle and its destiny stand in complete opposition to the love of the Father... These things in themselves are not the world. The world is the organised way they support and sustain life, and absorb energy and attention, in complete separation from God and without reference to Him.
Another writer separates the different senses of the word.
The word world can be used in three senses. Literally, it means the order or system by which people manage human affairs on the earth. We also call the earth itself the world, because it is the platform on which the world-system operates. And we call the people who live by this world-system the world too. So we can distinguish them like this: the world-space, the world-people, the world-system.
John does not forbid contact, ownership, or use. He forbids affection.
"Do not love the world." The sin is not in the using of the world but in the loving. Living fish swim against the stream. In the same way we must swim against the world. If we do not, the stream will carry us down into the Dead Sea.
The test is personal, not outward. Anyone can answer it.
We may, sadly, be tempted by it, or in an unguarded moment be overcome by it, but the testing question is, Do we love it? This is a solemn word for all who claim to belong to God's family, yet seem more at home with the world than with God's people.
The clause about the Father is unusual, and its force lies in the contrast.
The apostle is emphatic that the love of the world and the love of the Father cannot exist together. "If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." Only here, I think, do we read of the love of the Father — that is, of our love for the Father... In this passage the apostle contrasts our love for the Father with our love for the world. They exclude each other.
Commentators differ on how far the words go. One reads them as describing the unbeliever — "in any absolute sense, only an unbeliever loves the world" (Leslie M. Grant). Another applies them to a Christian's present enjoyment:
"If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." That does not mean the man is not converted. It means that if you love the world, you do not get the love of the Father. The love of the Father is not in this scene. It is in another world altogether. It is the world of which Christ is the moral centre.
The remedy offered is not gritted teeth but a fuller heart.
The Father's love is the great safeguard against the world, its influences and entanglements. When that love satisfies the longings of the heart there is no room left for the world.
Kept there, a believer is freed on several fronts at once:
Just as we are kept in the love of God, we shall be delivered from love of the world (1 John 2:15); kept in love with the saints (1 John 5:1); and led out in love to the sinner (2 Cor. 5:14).
- Strength first. The warning follows a victory. A man who has beaten the enemy in open fight can still be taken by the world's charm.
- System, not planet. The world here is not the planet or its people. It is an organised way of running life that absorbs attention without reference to God.
- Loving, not using. The sin lies in the affection, not the possession. The test is whether you love it.
- Rival loves. Love for the world and love for the Father shut each other out. Commentators differ on whether John describes an unbeliever or a believer who has lost the enjoyment of that love.
- Full hearts. Kept in the Father's love, the heart is satisfied and has no room left for the world.
because all that [is] in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
The verse pulls back the surface of "the world" and names the three drives that run it. John also says where they do not come from. That one phrase — "not from the Father" — gives the believer a test for every offer the world makes.
The word does not point at mountains and oceans. Commentators say John means something fallen man has put together.
The Apostle leaves us in no doubt about the character of the world he speaks of. He does not mean the physical world of nature. He means the great system that fallen man has built up, and that system is marked by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
Loving the Father gives a kind of X-ray sight into that system.
If the love of the Father takes hold of us, we will see the world in its true light. We will have a spiritual power that works like the much prized X-ray. We will get down beneath the surface of things to the skeleton frame on which everything is built.
Each phrase covers a different appetite — one wants to own, one wants to look, one wants to be somebody.
The lust of the flesh is the desire of having — the desire to get for yourself the things that feed the flesh. The lust of the eyes is the desire of seeing, taking in, with the eyes or with the mind, all the things that feed your pleasures. It covers the restless cravings of the mind as well as the endless hunt for thrilling pleasures. The pride of life is the desire of being — the longing to be somebody, or to have something that feeds pride of heart. This is the deepest-rooted evil of the three, and often the least suspected.
Others compress the three into two motions of the heart, sorted by what a person already holds and what he still wants.
Poor world! Its composition is after all only twofold, lust and pride. Lust is seeking what I do not possess, pride is self-exaltation on account of what I do possess. These principles form and actuate the world — away from God.
John is speaking about origin. These energies could not come out of God, because of what God is.
These two forces at work in the world — lust and pride — do not begin in Him. They could not. With Him are righteousness, holiness and love in infinite perfection. So such things could not have their source in the Father.
The gap between the two sources is a matter of aim, and no heart can serve both.
The Father's aim is the glory of the Son; the world's aim is the satisfying of selfish lust. No heart can love and serve both God and money. But while the world and its lust is passing away like an empty show, "whoever does the will of God abides forever."
Writers trace all three back to Eve in the garden of Eden, in the order John lists them.
She saw that "the tree was good for food", so the lust of the flesh carried her away. She also saw that it was "a delight to the eyes", so the lust of the eyes drew her. Last, she saw that the tree "was to be desired to make one wise", and the pride of life that craves knowledge woke up… The world, then, is a vast system that fallen man has organised to indulge the different lusts of the flesh, to please the eye, and to feed the various forms of pride.
The tempter brought the same three to Christ in the wilderness. Each attack aimed at one target.
He began by tempting the Second Man to step out of the place of absolute dependence on God: "command these stones to become loaves of bread"… Then came the offer of the kingdoms of the world, with all their glory. Finally he took Him to the highest point of the temple. There he tempted Him to show Himself to the crowd below by a sudden miracle, and so win their admiration… The clear aim of every temptation was the same: to get the Blessed One to step out of complete dependence on God and perfect submission to His will. But it all failed.
The three names give the believer a simple test. Hold any offer, project, or ambition up against them.
Am I asked to take part in any movement that feeds the desires of the flesh? I can say no without hesitating. People may argue that it does good, but it is not the love that is of the Father. Someone may tell me of a plan that will give me a chance to get ahead in the world if I join it… but that is the lust of the eyes — not the love that is of the Father. They may promise me that I will be widely respected and honored, but that is the pride of life. It is not of the Father. He would lead me to honor Christ, not to seek honor for myself where Christ was dishonored.
- Source. Lust and pride could not begin in God; they have their origin in the world, not in the Father.
- Skeleton. Strip off the surface and three bones remain: having, seeing, being.
- Start. All three showed up together at the tree in Eden — good for food, pleasant to the eyes, desired to make one wise.
- Standoff. The tempter tried all three on Christ in the wilderness. Each one aimed to pull Him off dependence on God. Each one failed.
- Screen. Ask of any offer which of the three it feeds. If one of them drives it, it is not from the Father — and it is passing away.
And the world is passing, and its lust, but he that does the will of God abides for eternity.
John ends his warning against loving the world by giving the reason for it. One of the two things you can give your heart to has an expiry date; the other does not.
John is not naming a place. He means a system, and one writer maps how far it reaches:
This world-system in every aspect — whether we call it the social world, the political world, the commercial world, the scientific world, the religious world — all is not of the Father. All its glory is not of the Father. The love of the world is therefore inconsistent with the love of the Father. The controlling principles in it are the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life.
Those three principles make the system attractive. Another writer traces the appeal through each one and then names the verdict:
It appeals to the flesh, the feelings of a corrupted nature: this is the sensual attraction. But there is more. There is "the desire of the eyes," the artistic attraction — form, colour, perspective. All of it appeals to what seems noble and dignified in us, yet it calmly shuts the Father out… And third, "the pride of life" is the intellectual attraction. It is the appeal of growing knowledge, by which the world boasts that it can do without God… Let the energetic, strong child of God take warning: "the world is passing away and its desires." It is only a temporary, shining bubble, ready to burst.
The world is already on its way out. The reason lies in what the system is made of:
The world is lawless, and its pleasures and riches cannot last, for lawlessness cannot be allowed to continue. In the Father's world the pleasures are for evermore, and the riches are lasting. They last because they are connected with righteousness… Sin has ruined and corrupted the old order, and darkness fills it. It must pass away, and everyone who clings to it must pass away with it.
That has a direct consequence for how a believer spends his energy:
The stamp of death is on the entire present scene, and the world of the fallen first man is under the judgment of God. It must pass away. It will not abide… Such a person may turn away from the things that feed the life that is of God, and take part instead in what builds up the world. So far as he does, he is spending his strength on what is passing away, not on what abides.
The one who lasts is marked by whose will he follows:
Now the world passes away. But the one who does the will of God shall abide for ever. As he goes through this world, he takes as his guide not the desires of nature but the will of God. That will is according to His nature and expresses it. So he abides for ever, in keeping with the nature and the will he has followed.
And it must be God's will, not a substitute we have chosen for ourselves:
Meanwhile, the doing of His will is of the greatest importance. Let it, however, be His will, and not some imaginary service of our own devising. As we have seen, we must know and understand it first, and then put it into practice.
John does not say the one who holds the right opinions abides — he says the doer does:
It is not only that the word abides for ever, but he that does God's will. This is of far more importance than any doctrine deduced by men, any article of faith, as it is called. It is no doubt needful to oppose what is false and evil, and we are bound to submit to the revealed word and will of God. But error easily slips into the doctrines that the best men draw up… Here, though, we learn that the doer of God's will abides for ever.
The will of God is not only work for this life:
The contrast is great in the one who does the will of God, however obscure; "he abides for ever." What will he be doing in heaven, in eternity? The will of God. The thought is precious, and will check self-will now.
- Two worlds. The world here is a whole system — social, political, commercial, scientific, religious. It runs on the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life. None of it comes from the Father.
- Already dissolving. The system is lawless, not just fragile. It cannot be allowed to continue, and everyone who clings to it passes away with it.
- A wasted investment. Build up that system, and you spend your strength on what is passing, not on what abides.
- The dividing line. The one who lasts follows God's will, not natural desire. And it must be God's real will, not a service he invented himself.
- The same occupation for ever. Doing God's will is what a believer will be doing in eternity. Starting now checks self-will — and he abides for ever.
Little children, it is [the] last hour, and, according as ye have heard that antichrist comes, even now there have come many antichrists, whence we know that it is [the] last hour.
John writes to the youngest believers with solemn news. The clock has run down to its final hour, and the proof is not one great enemy but many. Two questions follow. What does "hour" mean here? And how can an hour announced so long ago still be running?
In this verse "little children" translates a different word from the one used earlier in the chapter.
This letter uses two words that are both translated "little children." The one in 1 John 2:12 and 28 is simply "children." It takes in all believers, since all are children of God. The other, used in 1 John 2:13 and 18, is really "babes," the beginners in the Christian life. These are the ones told that it is "the last hour." That is, it is the last epoch, and in its last days the Antichrist will appear. So already men of antichristian character were at work.
Beginners get the hardest news first, and one writer notes how strange that seems to us.
"Little children, it is the last hour." How this must have sounded in their souls and made them wonder! Many think that such truth is not at all the right food for babes. It is much to be wished that Christians would read their Bible, and not only read but in all simple confidence believe it.
John's own usage elsewhere sets the sense of the word.
With John an hour is a period of time marked by a certain event, which may be good or evil. In the gospel he speaks of the hour of life-giving (John 5:25), of resurrection (5:28), and of the hour that had come for His glorification (12:23). Here he says it is the last hour. Nothing more was left to wait for except the coming of Christ. The evil had now fully developed, and the antichrists were present.
Some read the phrase as naming the age of grace. One writer disagrees.
Many think that this refers to grace as the last dispensation, but this does not fit the context here. John uses the word "hour" as a period marked by one thing... It is not the outflow of grace but the coming of many antichrists.
Centuries have passed and the hour has not closed. Why?
Yes, it is a "last hour" — a very long hour, no doubt. The reason is not delay but the long-suffering of God. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Grace has some more souls to save and bless, some more to make members of Christ's body; and therefore God waits. But from the apostle's day it is the "last hour."
What makes it final is that no further stage of God's working is left to come.
But it is the last hour, because the power of evil has come in. When Christ was here, and was rejected, the power of evil was in the world. Then, when God raised up the church by the presence of the Holy Spirit, while Christ was on high... there came power of redemption into the middle of Satan's world. That was not the last hour. But now antichrists had come in. So he says, "this is the last hour," because even this had failed. Nothing will come after this but judgment.
One writer describes how this opposition works.
No evil is as blatant as antichrist. It is direct, personal opposition to the Lord. He may imitate the Lord Jesus in order to oppose Him. He may claim what belongs only to God in order to exalt himself and deny God.
The verse also holds two things apart: one figure still to come, and many already here.
The Greek name antichristos means an opposer of Christ. Only John uses it, in his first and second letters. It is important to tell the difference between an antichrist and the antichrist. John says, "as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come." But he also says, "This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son" (1 John 2:18, 22). He is what all the many antichrists lead up to.
What marks an antichrist is not general wickedness but a specific rejection.
The "many antichrists" who have preceded him all run on similar lines. Their denials are aimed mainly at the Son, who appeared on earth. They may claim that they have nothing to say about the Father, or against Him. Such a claim is useless. To deny the Son is to deny the Father. To confess the Son is to have the Father also.
John does not leave the warning hanging. He points beginners to a refuge.
Evil is ripening, and the spirit of falsehood is spreading. The sure refuge of the babes is that what they heard from the beginning should stay in them. Then they will remain in the true fellowship, in the Son and in the Father. They will not be deceived by anyone speaking of the "universal fatherhood" of God, or anything of the kind.
- Hour. For John an hour is a stretch of time marked by one event. This one is marked by antichrists, not by the spread of the gospel.
- Sign. The many antichrists are the evidence. They imitate Christ in order to oppose Him, and the Antichrist to come is their full flowering.
- Patience. The hour has run long because God is not slow but long-suffering, still saving souls before the end.
- Test. The dividing line is the Son: deny Him and the Father is gone with Him; confess Him and you have the Father too.
- Safeguard. Beginners are not told to become clever, but to let what they heard at the start stay in them.
They went out from among us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have surely remained with us, but that they might be made manifest that none are of us.
John writes to believers shaken by men who once sat among them and now stand against Christ. This verse explains why they left. Their going out was not a loss to the church. It was an exposure, and it shows what marks a person as one of God's own.
The people John describes were not outsiders. They left a place they once held.
Remember that the very worst of them, the antichrists, had once had their place in the church. While an apostle was alive, people recognised them as part of the family of God.
Their leaving did not change their standing. It displayed it.
By this act they made it clear that they never really belonged to the family of God — they were not "of us." The true believer is marked by holding fast the faith. They had abandoned it and gone out from the Christian company, showing in that way that they had no vital connection with the children of God.
Older versions end the verse with "they were not all of us." That wording sounds as if some of those who left were genuine. Kelly pushes the grammar the other way.
This is a very strange and incorrect rendering: "they were not all of us." It really has no proper meaning at all… The Greek text actually says "they all were not of us." In plain English that means "none of them were of us." But if you say, "they were not all of us," it would imply that some were. Some of these antichrists were of us! The apostle expressly contradicts this.
Believers can fail and shrink from the cost of standing with a faithful servant of God. Grant separates that weakness from what John describes here.
The case in 2 Timothy 1:15 is far removed from this. There Paul writes, "You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me." That does not mean they rejected the ministry John gave about the eternal Deity and perfect Manhood of the Lord Jesus. It means they were unwilling to be identified with Paul in suffering for the truth about the church of God and its separation from unrighteousness. Even true believers had apparently turned away from Paul in this way, as Demas had deserted him when the pressure of persecution threatened. This is pathetic weakness, but not the spirit of antichrist, of which John speaks. "They went out from us" refers to a cold, deliberate refusal of what they had once acknowledged in public. All that remained in them was a callous contempt for the blessed personal glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Jude writes about ungodly men too. They moved the opposite way, and the contrast sharpens what John means by "went out."
The ungodly men John speaks of "went out," whereas the ungodly Jude writes about "crept in." The difference in result is very great. If ungodly men "go out," they become opposers of the truth outside the Christian circle. If the ungodly creep in, they become corrupters of the truth inside the Christian circle. To oppose the truth is indeed serious; to corrupt it is far worse.
The test is not only about the past. It reaches every reader.
The parable of the sower shows the same thing. Of the four parts that appear to receive the truth, only one receives it in a prepared heart and, understanding it, bears fruit. It is not the agreement of the mind, but the reception of Christ in the heart by faith. Have you received Christ in this way? If you have, you will certainly continue; if you have not, you will sooner or later fall away.
- Among, not of. The people who left had a recognised place in the Christian company. They never belonged to it. The whole verse turns on two words: "of us."
- Going out exposed. Their leaving made nothing new. It showed what was already true: no living link with the children of God.
- All, not some. The Greek means none of them were of us. Not one was genuine. The exposure covers every one who went out.
- Failure is not defiance. Demas turned away under pressure, and that is sad failure. This verse describes something colder: a deliberate refusal of the Christ they had once acknowledged.
- Two dangers, one test. Some go out and oppose the truth. Others creep in and corrupt it. One test settles both: has the heart received Christ? Whoever has received Him will continue.
And *ye* have [the] unction from the holy [one], and ye know all things.
Teachers who once belonged to this circle had walked out, and they kept pressing their teaching on the believers. John does not hand them arguments; he points to what they already have. (Quotes below that read "an unction from the Holy One, and you know all things" follow an older translation of this verse.)
The word behind "anointed" points back to an Old Testament practice.
The word translated "unction" here is the same word translated "anointing" in verse 27. In the Old Testament, priests and kings were anointed with oil, and in one case at least a prophet. Each of these involves a place of dignity as representing God in some way. The anointing pictures the giving of the Spirit of God as necessary to equip the individual for his holy and responsible position. The anointing involves the wonderful capacity the Spirit of God gives to every renewed soul, for receiving and understanding the truth of the Word of God.
The wording itself rules out one obvious reading, since the anointing is said to come from someone.
Attention to the exact language used will at once show that the "Holy One" in verse 20 cannot be the Holy Spirit. It is an unction "from the Holy One." Every believer knows that the Spirit of God is Himself the anointing. So we could not say, as verse 27 does, that we received it from Him. The "Holy One" must therefore mean either the Father or Christ. John's Gospel tells us that both the Father and the Son send the Comforter.
Notice who John comforts here.
How striking that he comforts the least mature part of the family, and not the whole family! He assures them that they have the great distinctive privilege Christ went on high to send down, to be in and with them. They wait for His coming, and all the power of the world and the schemes of Satan stand against them. If the babes have an unction from the Holy One, as he says, and by His indwelling energy can be said to know all things, how could it be denied to the young men and the fathers in the household of faith?
The phrase does not mean a young believer has nothing left to learn. The difference is between capacity and content.
The word for know is the one meaning inward, conscious knowledge. If it is a question of acquired knowledge, there are ten thousand details of which the babe is at present ignorant, but the Anointing gives him that inward capacity which brings all things within his reach. He knows all things potentially, though not yet in detail.
This capacity shows first in what it refuses. A believer may not be able to answer a false teacher, and yet not be fooled by him.
The antichristian teachers had left the Christian circle, but they still tried to influence the saints of God with their harmful teaching. Not every child of God was able to refute that teaching. Yet every one had the ability to know the teaching was false, for, says the apostle, "you have an unction from the Holy One, and you know all things." They had the Holy Spirit, so they had a capacity for entering into all the truth, but they had the ability to discern all that was not the truth.
The anointing does not stand alone. John pairs it with the truth they had held from the start.
Two things kept them safe from deceivers and deceptions. One was the Holy Spirit living in them as an unction and spiritual intelligence. The other was the truth they had received at the beginning — the perfect revelation of Christ. If the unction of the Holy One is in us to judge them, we will find that all heresy, all error and all corruption strike at that first and divine revelation of the truth.
So are teachers of no use? One writer draws a careful line.
The Lord has gifted some as teachers, and He uses them; but you do not depend on them completely. Believing that teachers are essential is where many dear children of God go wrong, and why they make no more progress in divine things. They lean on their minister, or their teacher, on this man's commentary or that man's book. I am thankful to be taught anything of God through any person or channel He pleases. Notice, through, but not from, any person. The distinction is obvious.
- Cause — Teachers had left the circle but kept pushing their teaching; this verse is John's answer.
- Gift — The anointing is the Spirit Himself, the same word as in verse 27, received from the Holy One — the Father or Christ.
- Reach — God gives it to the babes, not only to the mature; if they have it, the fathers surely do too.
- Result — "Knowing all things" is capacity, not a catalogue. The babe knows all things potentially, and can spot what is not the truth even when he cannot argue against it.
- Test — The anointing works alongside the truth heard at the beginning. Teachers still help, but truth comes through them, never from them.
I have not written to you because ye do not know the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.
John has just warned about many antichrists. That warning could shake the youngest believers, so he stops to say why he wrote. It was not because they lack the truth. It was because they already have it, and because a lie can never belong to the truth.
John's warning is aimed at the least experienced believers. He starts by reminding them what grace has already given them.
Verses 20, 21. It is moving to see the way John goes about sheltering the babes in the faith from the danger of the seducers. Their weak condition called for this help. But in giving it, John's first care is to remind them of what they are through grace: You have been anointed by the Holy Spirit, you know the truth.
Strong words about deceivers can make young believers wonder if John means them. John removes that fear.
In verse 21 the apostle writes strongly about these antichrists. He assures the inexperienced babe that this is not because he suspects them of being such. He sets them fully at ease and states his confidence in them without reserve. The babes, inexperienced as they may be, are in the light, and the light is in them. They know the truth. They have it as from God. They live in the reality of their link with God, holding and enjoying it through what they had heard from the beginning — the truth... It is not that babes have taken in the full range of God's thoughts, or fully understood the counsels of His will, or grasped the purposes He has revealed. But the knowledge of God is in their souls. By this knowledge, whatever their measure of it, they sense that no lie is of the truth.
This knowing is not a matter of education or years.
"I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth" (1 John 2:21). Is that not very striking? It is a remarkable word. There is a divine competency by the Spirit of God, even in the heart of the youngest saint, to detect what is of God and what is not of God. The Spirit of God, of course, is that divine and blessed competency.
One false claim can expose the whole system it belongs to. So the teaching to watch is the one that offers itself as an advance on Christ.
How full of cheer and comfort! The teaching of tradition is always vague. It leaves the soul uncertain even about what we most need — assurance, so that we may have settled peace with God. But where believers have simply received Christ and fully enjoy Him, the claim to new truth opens the door to the evil one; and he soon appears. This is a signal for the babes to beware. No lie is of the truth. Since the truth is a consistent whole, one obvious lie may betray the falsehood of the entire system. And God makes this known even to the babes.
If the truth is already yours, investigating every rival claim is not the path to safety.
This is a great safeguard for the saints when errors in attractive disguises are on the move. If we have the truth we may well be satisfied, and we do not need to examine everything else that claims to be a truth. The Lord would spare us both the defilement and the trouble... We can make no greater mistake, when we know we have the truth, than to examine an error which claims to replace what we already have. Teachers may have a duty to do this, to expose the tricks of Satan. But it is enough for the "babes" to rest in the certainty of the truth itself, and in the knowledge that no lie is of the truth.
The context here is teaching about Christ, and only two verdicts are open.
Any lie puts things out of right proportion and is therefore not of the truth. This is true in general, but the context here has to do with any teaching about Christ. We are in the habit of calling doctrines either truth or error. This passage would suggest that we should be bolder – is it truth, or is it a lie?
Writers applying this verse elsewhere reach the same conclusion about what protects a believer under pressure.
The knowledge of the truth is the appointed safeguard against every lie (1 John 2:21), and the only effective one.
- Anointing — this knowledge is not earned by study. It comes from the Spirit, given to every believer, even the youngest.
- Assurance — John writes with confidence in his readers, not suspicion. They already stand in the light.
- Instinct — even a small grasp of the truth is enough to sense that a lie does not belong to it.
- Refusal — the truth is one whole, so one clear lie condemns the whole system. You need not examine what claims to replace what you have.
- Verdict — there is no middle ground between truth and a lie. Of any teaching about Christ, ask: is it truth, or is it a lie?
Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? *He* is the antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.
John is writing about people who once confessed Christ and now deny Him. This verse names the lie they carry — and it names two denials, not one.
This is sharper than a general complaint about dishonesty. John does not say "a liar." He says "the liar" — and he has one kind of person in mind.
"Who is the liar?" says the indignant apostle. "Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?" One way or another, they undermined and destroyed His person. How terrible that people who once confessed Him now count such a lie as new and great truth! For "the liar" here is not Satan. It is someone who once passed as a Christian. They now deny that Jesus is the Christ.
The verse names two refusals, and they belong to two different settings.
Here we learn that there are two steps. First comes the denial of the Jewish confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. That is the fatal unbelief of that nation. Then comes the denial of the Father and the Son. That is the equally fatal rejection of the Christian confession. The antichrist will be the chief outcome of this double blasphemous unbelief, this spirit of falling away, found not only among the Jews but in Christendom. He will be the head of both. That unbelieving Jews and Christians can and will have one common head is enough to show how complete the falling away must be.
The denial is not that a Christ exists at all. It is more targeted than that.
So the antichrist completely denies the Christian revelation. He does not deny the Jewish hope; he claims to fulfil it. He does not say there is no Christ; he says that Jesus is not the Christ. In both ways he is the head of Jewish unbelief.
The second denial goes further than the first. It throws away truth the Jewish nation never had.
The word antichrist assumes that more truth has been given up than the Jews ever knew. In a general way even a Jew who heard of the Lord Jesus and rejected Him might be "the liar." The Law, the Psalms and the Prophets all pointed to Jesus. But the Jew would not have a Messiah who suffered for sins on the cross instead of setting up His world-kingdom. He preferred what the devil offered — the very thing the Messiah refused.
The two titles do not carry the same weight.
Jesus was the Messiah, and much more: the Father was displayed in Him. If I look at the Messiah as such, I do not fully see the Father there. But there is something far more blessed than the kingdom. When I think of the Father, I rise not merely into the region of divine power, but into that of the highest, holiest and most intimate affections. So it is not merely the rejection of the Lord Jesus as Messiah that brings in antichrist, but the rejection of His divine glory as the Son.
An imitation only works where there is something real to imitate. That is why this evil grows among people who profess Christ, not outside them.
There could not be an antichrist unless there had been some earlier profession of Christ. There must be some truth there, because Satan cannot invent. He can imitate. He can corrupt God's truth, use it for his own ends, and put it into new and evil forms, so that plain error looks like truth.
That leaves one test for any teaching you meet.
We can be fooled if we judge such systems by the Christian words they use and the way they behave. The real test is this: where do they stand on the truth about the Person of Christ? You will find that every false system denies the truth of His Person in some form. And denial of the truth of the Son will lead to denial of the truth about the Father.
The open denials of John's day have not disappeared, but they have learned to travel by quieter routes.
In the Apostle's day he aimed at the centre openly. The antichrists boldly denied that Jesus was the Christ: they denied the Father and the Son. In our day some of them are still doing this. Many more however hardly do this; they introduce teachings of a more subtle kind, not so harmful on the surface but ultimately leading to just the same denials, whereby the centre of the target is hit.
- One target. Every lie aims at the Person of Christ. Deny that Jesus is the Christ, and you are not one liar among many — you are the liar.
- Two denials. The first throws away the Jewish hope. The second throws away the Christian truth of the Father and the Son. Both aim at the same Person.
- One head. In the antichrist the two denials merge. Unbelieving Jews and unbelieving Christendom will share one leader.
- Inside, not outside. There could be no antichrist without an earlier profession of Christ. Satan cannot invent. He can only imitate and corrupt.
- One test. Judge no system by its Christian words or clean conduct — ask only where it stands on the Person of Christ.
Whoever denies the Son has not the Father either; he who confesses the Son has the Father also.
The verse stands in the middle of John's warning about antichrists, and it turns a doctrinal dispute into a personal test. Everything depends on where a person stands towards the Son — and John says the Father comes or goes with Him.
Christian words and Christian practice can fool us. Hamilton Smith names the one question that settles it:
Having the Spirit and the truth, we at once learn that the Person of Christ is the great test of every antichristian system. We may be deceived if we judge them by the Christian terms they may use and the practice they may pursue. The real test is this: where do they stand on the truth about the Person of Christ? Every false system denies the truth of His Person in some form. There are, however, two main forms of error and opposition to the truth. One of them, found mainly among the Jews, denies that Jesus is the Christ — the Messiah who is to come. The other rises among those who profess Christianity, and it denies the truth of the Father and the Son.
William Kelly turns to people who claim to honour God the Father while denying the Son:
The Unitarians claim to honour the Father, but they deny the Son. The result is that their claim to the Father, according to this verse, is worth nothing at all. The Father is not the test of the truth; the Son is. So if anyone acknowledges the Son, he has the Father also. They go together. But the Son is the only test, and the one Mediator.
The first half of the verse looks obvious until you see who it targets. Darby says why John had to write it:
It is also important to note this word in verse 23, "No one who denies the Son has the Father." Many who reject Christ pretend that they do not reject the Father.
Another writer shows what that pretence is really after:
Men will pretend to honour the Father while they try to dishonour the Son. But Scripture is plain: "No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also." Those who deny the eternal Sonship of Jesus are known for boasting of their worship of the Father. The enemy will attack any and every part of the truth, but his real object is the Person of the Son.
Edward Dennett takes up the claim to believe in God without Christ:
So God — God the Father — cannot be known apart from the Son. He cannot be known apart from the truth of what He is in His own essential dignity, or apart from the truth of His person, as Jesus Christ come in the flesh… To claim faith in God apart from Christ amounts to rejecting the true God. God has made Himself known only in Christ, and He can be known nowhere else.
Saying the words is not the same as knowing God. J. G. Bellett makes the point:
I may say, "Abba, Father," in the spirit of adoption. A poet may say, "We are also His offspring." But no one knows God as the Father unless the Son is acknowledged in the glory of the Godhead.
The second half of the verse is the promise. H. J. Vine lists what comes with the Son:
We are to leave alone those who do not confess the Son. They have not the Father. "Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also" (v. 23). He knows the Father. He has the Father. He has eternal life. And all this is because he "has the Son" (5:12). These vital possessions are abiding, enduring, and eternal.
James Boyd adds that no believer before Christ came had this:
To have the Son, then, is to have the Father. No believer in past times had this, for the Father had not come to light. The revelation of the Father waited for the Son to be shown. Both came to light together, and both are known together. To have the One is to have the Other.
Some older Bibles print the second half of the verse in italics, as if the translators doubted it. One writer explains why, and why the words belong:
An example is 1 John 2:23. In our New Testament the last half of the verse stands in italics, as if it were not in the Greek. But it is in many Greek copies (except the word 'but'), and it is genuine beyond doubt. It was probably left out because both halves of the verse end with the same Greek words, 'has the Father.'
- Test — the real measure of any teaching is not the Christian words it uses but where it stands on the Person of the Son.
- Pretence — many who reject Christ still claim the Father. John cuts that claim off. The enemy's real target is the Son.
- Access — there is no way to the Father around the Son. God has made Himself known only in Christ.
- Gift — whoever confesses the Son has the Father, knows Him, and has eternal life. The Father and the Son come together, never apart.
- Wording — older Bibles italicise the closing clause, but it is genuine. A copyist's eye slipped, because both halves end with the same words.
As for *you* let that which ye have heard from the beginning abide in you if what ye have heard from the beginning abides in you, *ye* also shall abide in the Son and in the Father.
John writes to people surrounded by teachers who deny the Son. His answer is not a new argument but an old one — hold on to what you already have, because what abides in you decides where you abide.
The phrase is easy to misread as a person. One commentator notes the exact wording and where it sends us back to:
"Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you." It is not "Him that is from the beginning," but "what (or, that which) you heard from the beginning." He goes back as far as the opening words of the first chapter. The difference between "Him that was from the beginning" and "that which" is very small. In fact both are true, each perfect in its own place. But an emphasis is lost in the Authorised Version. It should be brought out at the start of verse 24, as newer translations do: "As for you, let that which you heard from the beginning abide in you." What he presses is this: abiding in what they heard from the beginning.
So the message and the Person are not rivals. What they first heard was itself the revelation of the Son:
If the truth that we have received from the beginning abides in us, we abide in the Son and in the Father; for this truth is the revelation of the Son, and is revealed by the Son, who is the truth. It is living truth, if it abides in us; so, by having it, we have the Son, and in the Son, the Father also. We abide in it, and by that we have eternal life (compare John 17:3).
If the first message was the Person of Christ, then Christian truth has no later editions. That is the reason the verse can command us simply to stay:
"From the beginning" is Christ in flesh, the beginning of God's ways in grace… Man develops, progresses, changes. What was from the beginning in what God does is perfect. This is a root principle of Christianity. It makes the Person of Christ the foundation of everything. His work displays God's moral nature to others, but His Person is that in which He is. We hold to Him. This cannot change. The essence of Christianity is, therefore, that there is no development in it.
The Antichrist denies the Father and the Son. The refuge of the youngest believers is what they heard at the start, and holding it keeps them in true communion:
The Antichrist will deny the Father and the Son, and that Jesus is the Christ. Now these are terrible falsehoods, and the faithful in the last days will be kept from believing them. Meanwhile, evil ripens and the spirit of falsehood spreads further. The sure refuge of the babes is that what they had heard from the beginning should abide in them. Then they would abide, in true communion, in the Son and in the Father. No one will deceive them with talk of the "universal fatherhood" of God, or anything like it. They will not settle for anything less than the true confession of the Son: "whoever denies the Son does not have the Father."
The verse names the Son first, then the Father. That order is deliberate:
In 1 John 2:24, it is abiding "in the Son and in the Father." The whole treatment of this matter here is meant to teach us how truly the Son is one with the Father. We cannot be in the Son without being in the Father, and we can only be in the Father by being in the Son. For that reason the Son comes first in 1 John 2:24.
What John gave the babes has a long reach beyond their crisis:
The "babes" had the anointing of the Holy One, and they knew the truth. But now the apostle adds an exhortation… This is the third source or means of their safety, and in it lies a principle of lasting importance. Once corruption has come in and produced confusion on every hand, there is no other remedy than to go back to the beginning. The apostle Paul urges Timothy in the same way. In the difficult days he faced, Timothy was to continue in the things he had learned and been assured of, knowing who taught him (2 Timothy 3:14-17).
- Heard. The command fixes on what you heard at the beginning. That first message is itself the revelation of the Son.
- Held. Christianity has no development. What God gave at the start is perfect, so holding on is safety, not backwardness.
- Housed. The truth kept in you is living truth. Hold it, and you have the Son — and in the Son, the Father.
- Home. You cannot be in the Son without being in the Father, and you reach the Father only through the Son. So John names the Son first.
- Return. When confusion spreads, the remedy is not a new answer but the old one: go back to the beginning.
And this is the promise which *he* has promised us, life eternal.
John has just warned his readers about deceivers, and told them to hold on to what they heard from the beginning. Here he names what God has promised them: eternal life. But how can a life that believers already have still be called a promise?
One writer ties this promise to the verse before it, and to how Jesus Himself described eternal life.
This continuing in the Son and in the Father is eternal life. The Lord Jesus spoke of eternal life as, "that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3). Verse 25 of our chapter carries this a step further. He who abides in the Son and in the Father is abiding in the life which is eternal. The Eternal Life had been shown and seen, but that was the privilege of the apostles only. Now we may have that life and be in it; and this is for all of us, for these things were written to the babes in the family of God.
One writer asks where the truth is found, and whether anything can be added to it.
Where then is the truth, and what is it? It is Christ; and it is Christ as He was shown here. How can there be any development of Him, or of God's written word which reveals Him? Nothing can be added to make the truth more perfect than it is... The truth cannot be separated from Christ, and from Christ as God has revealed Him in His word.
John writes to the youngest believers. Another writer shows what the enemy was aiming at.
God's safeguard for the babes of His family is that they hold fast the truth they have heard. What had come out in Jesus was to have a lasting place in the heart. They were to treasure it there, and it was to form them in the truth about the Father and the Son. This was the real substance of Christianity, that in which eternal life consisted... The enemy sought to rob the babes of the enjoyment of eternal life by taking from them the truth of the Person of the Son. If they lost the truth about the Son, they lost the truth about the Father. They would also lose the joys that these great truths bring to the soul.
The deceivers made promises of their own. One writer sets them against God's promise, and names the error they were pushing.
The babes need and receive the most watchful warning against innovators who overturn the truth by promises as false as God's promise is true... The recent deceivers tried to persuade themselves and others about eternal life. They said we do not have it now in the Son, and can only receive it at the resurrection. But this is to forget and abandon what we heard from the beginning; it was a lie, and no lie is of the truth.
Two things stand behind the word "promised": the character of God who gave it, and the coming of His Son.
"God cannot lie." Every promise of His shall be fulfilled, not a word of His shall fail. And He has promised eternal life, and He did it before the ages of time. The promise was made before time began, but it had to be brought into time and shown there. When the ages of time have passed away and ended, full blessedness will remain in glory and love for ever. But the fulfilment of the promise depended on one thing: the Son coming out of eternity into time.
Scripture speaks of eternal life as something believers have today, and also as something still ahead. One writer shows where each emphasis comes from.
This eternal life is in God's Son, and true believers have it in Him now, and shall have it in Him and with Him for all eternity (1 John 5:11). Through John the Spirit of God presents eternal life as something the saints in Christ have even now. Through Paul the Holy Spirit presents it as tied to our glorified condition with Christ in a coming day. So it is a "blessed hope", the "hope of eternal life" (Titus 1:2; Titus 2:13; Titus 3:7).
- Promised — a God who cannot lie promised eternal life before time began. Its fulfilment waited on the Son stepping out of eternity into time.
- Given — the life once seen only by the apostles now belongs to every child of God, down to the youngest.
- Held — the way to hold the promise is to abide: continuing in the Son and in the Father is itself the eternal life.
- Guarded — the truth heard from the beginning keeps the promise safe. Nothing can be added to Christ as God revealed Him, and deceivers make promises as false as God's promise is true.
- Completed — John shows the life as ours today. Paul shows it as our hope. It is one life, held now and enjoyed in full in glory.
These things have I written to you concerning those who lead you astray
John gives the youngest believers in his family a warning. He has been writing about people who are trying to pull them off course. Who were these deceivers? And why did John think the least mature Christians needed to hear about them?
Much of the New Testament exists because error broke in first. One writer sets this verse inside that larger pattern.
The greater part of the New Testament — the letters — owes its origin to the damage Satan did in the Church. God allowed the damage only so that the folly of these things would be shown up, and so that the full glory of the truth would come out. "I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you." What he writes about here is what certain pretenders held. They made the highest claims for themselves, and they would lead these believers astray.
John aims this warning at the "babes" — the newest believers. One writer draws a pointed lesson from that choice about how we treat new converts.
Notice that it is the babes John warns about this danger and trap. That matters greatly. In our day people too often think it needless — or even unwise — to warn young converts about common errors. John, on the other hand, speaks plainly, and prepares them for the dangers that lie all around their path. Even a worldly proverb says, "To be forewarned is to be forearmed." Many a shipwreck would have been spared us if those who lead in the Church of God had copied John's example.
So how did they work? One writer describes their method: a promise of something more than these young believers already had.
Seducers raise doubts even more than other unbelievers do, to spread their own errors and lead astray the simple who enjoy the truth of God. One of the great aims of this letter is to arm even the youngest believers against their evil and dangerous tricks. One way these seducers worked was to make the immature doubt whether they had the full truth. The antichrists claimed there was far more to know than anyone had known before. This new light of theirs was the great prize, they said. And if you did not have it, that raised the question whether you were a real Christian at all.
Calling such people liars sounds harsh. One writer answers that objection, and links plain speech to where our hearts really are.
It was an evil at work from the very beginning. And what mercy there is even in this! The evil did exist, and it had to come to light at some point. So God allowed it to break out then, and put His own revealed verdict on it. We would never have dared to say such strong things about people we had known as friends, or as so-called brothers. Call them liars! How shocking and unloving, people would say. But the moment anyone sets himself against the full revelation of the Son of God — or rather, denies it — the Holy Spirit makes no allowance for it. I believe we ought not to either. If the heart is unprepared for this, you will find something else goes along with it. Where self-love, touchiness and stubbornness rule unchecked in what touches ourselves, there is little care for the Lord Jesus.
John does not leave the warning alone. One writer points to the safeguard that follows, and to a common misuse of it.
Here we have the reason the apostle speaks to the babes this way. We must not shut our eyes to the seduction all around us. But their safeguard comes right after: the anointing they have received. Let us not misunderstand that, because I have heard it said, "Oh, I can get on without teaching." I do not think you will. If someone despises teaching, you may be sure that person never grows or gets on. The Lord has given helps and teachers. But the point is this: the young soul has an anointing of the Holy Spirit, and there is no need for the teaching of new things.
Why can the anointing be trusted when a teacher may not be?
They did not rely on teachers to tell them what was true and what was false. That was the work of the anointing of the Spirit. Teachers may be true or false, but the anointing is always true; nothing false comes from this divine teacher.
- Cause. Error came in, and God allowed it so its folly would be shown up and the truth would shine out. Much of the New Testament exists because of it.
- Target. John aims the warning at the youngest believers. He prepares them for danger instead of hiding it from them.
- Tactic. The deceivers promised new light beyond the truth held from the beginning. They worked by making young believers doubt they had the whole truth.
- Plain speech. Where people deny the Son of God, Scripture makes no allowance. A heart full of self finds that plainness offensive; a heart set on Christ does not.
- Safeguard. The anointing inside the believer tells truth from lie. Teachers may be true or false; the anointing is always true.
and *yourselves*, the unction which ye have received from him abides in you, and ye have not need that any one should teach you; but as the same unction teaches you as to all things, and is true and is not a lie, and even as it has taught you, ye shall abide in him.
Teachers were pulling these believers away from Christ, and John answers by pointing to something they already hold. So what is this anointing, and does the verse really mean a Christian needs no human teacher?
John comforts the least mature part of the family, not the most advanced. One writer weighs what that means for every believer further along:
How striking that he comforts not the whole family, but the least mature part of it! He assures them that they possess the great, distinctive privilege Christ went on high to send down, to be in them and with them. They wait for His coming, with all the power of the world and the schemes of Satan set against them. The babes, he declares, have an anointing from the Holy One, and by His power living in them we can say they know all things. If that is so with them, how much less can anyone deny it to the young men and the fathers in the household of faith?
The anointing is the Holy Spirit Himself, given to them and staying. One writer sets it beside the other thing that abides — the word they heard:
He had said that the word they heard was to abide in them — the one written standard of the truth. Now he repeats the other blessed truth. The holy anointing, the Spirit given to them, abides. His anointing abides in you, "little children": this He faithfully continues. And the anointing of the Spirit is for understanding and enjoying, in power, the truth of God in Christ.
The anointing gives capacity, not a ready-made store of facts:
John teaches the "babes" that since the Holy Spirit has anointed them, they are themselves at the source of all knowledge. He does not mean that they in fact know all things. He means that, in having the anointing, they have within themselves the possibility of knowing, and so of telling truth from error.
Some have used this clause to dismiss human teachers altogether. One writer answers that directly:
I hardly need to say this does not refer to Christian teaching. Some have abused this text to deny the need of God-given teachers. That is not the thought at all. But we have received an anointing from God — we need no human teaching, only divine. Suppose someone comes to you claiming he has found some wonderful truth in Theosophy, Spiritism, or Christian Science. Do not be tempted to look into it. The anointing you have already received teaches you. There is nothing beyond that.
The word itself points back to oil, and to the difference between a channel and a source:
Oil is clearly a picture of the Holy Spirit. It was called the anointing oil, and the Spirit given to believers is called "the anointing." Man, as man, cannot teach his fellow man the things of God. Man, as a vessel of the Holy Spirit, may serve as a gracious channel, but the source of the teaching is always and ever the Holy Spirit.
Teachers can be right or wrong. This teacher carries no such risk:
Teachers have their work to do. They bring the word of God before the saints, and it carries its own authority and conviction to the soul. But it is the Spirit of God who makes divine truth good to us. Teachers may be true or false; the anointing is always true. Nothing false comes from this divine teacher.
And this safeguard belongs to the youngest believer, not the seasoned one:
Notice, too, it is the babe who has this anointing. It is not a matter of attainment, or even of experience. It is a divine instinct that lets us detect error and refuse it. We recognise it as not truth, because it does not give us the Christ of God; therefore we reject it.
The verse ends not in knowledge but in staying with Christ, and the order matters:
This order is very beautiful. First the anointing. Then this anointing teaching them all things. And last, abiding in Him. What could lead us astray, if the anointing of the Holy Spirit worked mightily in our souls, if we kept receiving His teachings, and if we were abiding in Christ! We should then be in the living enjoyment of the source of all knowledge, power, and blessing.
- Anointing — The anointing is the Holy Spirit, given and staying, so that we understand and enjoy the truth of God in Christ.
- Given to babes — John presses it on the least mature believers first; if they have it, no one further along lacks it.
- Teaches — It supplies capacity to know and to tell truth from error, not a finished store of knowledge.
- Not against teachers — Teachers stay God's gift and God's channel. What the verse rules out is human teaching as the source.
- Abide — The order is anointing, then teaching, then abiding in Him — and a soul kept in that order is not led astray.