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.