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.