1 John 2:3–28

But now he takes up another subject — the practical tests before men that we have got this life. In the main we may say that love for fellow believers, and righteousness or obedience, are the great tests... Now we come to the same life shown in its fruits down here; and they were questioning whether they had this life or not. So he gives them these marks of that life, to keep them conscious and certain that they had it — marks that some who made a high profession did not have.

What is the leading trait? What are the special marks of divine life in man? It is not power, nor love, nor even righteousness. What is it then? Obedience. This, it is clear, gives no importance to man. It calls for the creature's rightful subjection, and it also upholds the majesty of God... Do not call this legal: where is anything of the sort in John? And let me add this. Where there is love, nothing is sweeter than doing the will of the one who is loved. That is even more true when we know that He whose will we do is completely good and wise in all He lays on us.

"And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments" — the knowing is a continuous result. Keeping His commandments is not the only way the spirit of obedience shows itself; but as a rule it is the earliest. It begins without delay. It suits the youngest believer.

Yet they do not mean the Ten Commandments of the Law. That is never what John means by commandments here. It is all connected with Christ, bound up with Himself. In short, the law proved what man is; the gospel reveals what God in Christ is. So under law, God tested man to see whether he would give up his own will and meet God's demands to get life... So it is clear that the commandments here guide the new life already given, instead of being a moral standard to keep in order to gain life.

If one asks, Where am I to find them? we reply, Not on a list, but in whatever the Lord spoke and taught. This will oblige us to follow closely in His steps, but it is precisely what God expects from His children.

In this letter God and Christ are so completely joined in the apostle's thought that he speaks first of the one and then of the other about the same thing. God is revealed to us in Christ. It may seem confusing, but it brings out the glory of the Person of Christ... So it is here with God's commandments: they are Christ's commandments, and yet they are God's too.

The apostle takes the essential principles of the divine life — of the divine nature as shown in Christ — and uses them to test those who claimed a share in it. He does this not to make the believer doubt, but to reject what was false. He speaks of his own position, and of the position of those he was writing to, with the most perfect assurance.

If there is no real spirit of obedience, there is no true knowledge of God. Real knowledge of God brings both the desire and the power to obey His commandments. Where that obedience is present, it proves we know Him. How necessary a guard against self-deception!

Three times in this passage we find the words, "Whoever says." In verse 4, "Whoever says, I know Him." In verse 6, "Whoever says he abides in Him." In verse 9, "Whoever says he is in the light." Each time John gives a proof of what real Christianity is.

"Whoever says he abides in Him." Here is a further thing which might be only a boast, and an empty boast. John meets it in a way quite different from how he dealt with the careless despiser of God's authority. He called that man a liar, with the truth not in him, and marked him as having nothing of God at all. But when someone claims to abide in Him, how quiet and yet how conclusive the inference is! Do you say that you abide in Him? Then you ought to walk as He walked... Not the law but Christ is the standard.

Being in Him, we are to "abide in Him." As we understand it, that means abiding in the consciousness and power of being in Him. It is easy for any of us to say, "I abide in Him." But if we say it, we must produce what proves the claim to be real.

To abide in Him means more than giving up our own will in practice and distrusting ourselves. It also means clinging to Him in love, leaning on Him in our weakness, and communion with Him in His thoughts, as He has made them known in His word.

How often people say: "I know we are to be holy, but you cannot expect us to be perfectly holy."... We are not only to be like Paul. We are left here to be like Christ Himself. Look at this verse and you will see there is no limit short of that. The measure for our walk is what Christ was here. God abhors different measures. He does not measure His blessed Son's walk by one standard and His people's walk by another.

It does not say we ought to be what He was. It says we ought "to walk in the same way in which He walked." We could not be what Jesus was. But He has left us an example, and we follow in His steps.

Suppose we are in His life, and also in the power and enjoyment of it. Then that life must express itself in our ways and activities, just as it did in Him. The grace and power of our walk, compared with His, will be poor and feeble; yet it will be walk of the same order. The difference will not be in kind but only in degree.

In the gospels we look at the footsteps of our beloved Lord. There we see a pathway of unbroken communion with the Father. We see the tenderest compassion to the sick and needy. We see victory over Satan's power, and complete separation from every evil principle of the world. The light and love of God lit up that pathway from beginning to end.

Being a Christian, I am responsible to walk as one. Not that I may become one, bless the Lord! but because I am one... But through His precious blood we stand in the place of perfect favour — perfect peace, joy, and acceptance. So we ought to walk in keeping with the position grace has set us in.

In 1 John 2:7 we should read "Beloved," not "Brethren." The writer's heart was warm toward the people he addressed, and he wanted them just as warm toward each other. "The old commandment which we had from the beginning" is found early in the New Testament. The first word of our Lord recorded in the Gospel is "Follow me" (John 1:43). The last is the same, but stronger: "You follow me!" (John 21:22).

1 John 2:7 is equally conclusive. "An old commandment" which the saints had "from the beginning" cannot mean God's eternal purposes as such. It can only mean what our Lord commanded when He was with them here on earth. They did not hear it in eternity. They heard it in time, and only at that time... "He that is from the beginning" is the very same person as He "who was in the beginning." Both truths matter greatly to faith, but they are distinct and must never be merged into one another.

In the Gospel, "in the beginning" points back to the whole earlier existence of God. The phrase states the eternal existence of Christ as the Word. John's great subject is God made known, and divine life shown on earth. So he speaks of the eternal Word and of His coming as a man. But in the letter he goes on to this same life reproduced in us. With that in view, he traces this life back to its origin and to its perfect display — what Christ was on earth. 1 John 2:7 seems to prove that this is the force of the passage. In days when people want something more perfect than Christ, it matters to insist on what was from the beginning.

He added nothing new to what God had already revealed. The commandment was as old as the Son of God come in flesh. Every blessing, every responsibility took its character from this marvellous beginning. The commandment was "the word" given by the Son of God on earth. Note that we cannot turn this around and say the word was the commandment. "The word" is a broader term than "the commandment."

John was conscious that the commandment he was writing about was not new. It had already existed "from the beginning." (This expression first appears in the first verse of chapter 1. It refers to the time when the Lord Jesus was alive here on earth.) The context here shows that the subject is the Lord's commandment to love one another.

If it were not so — if it were new in this sense — so much the worse for the one who put it forward. It would no longer be the expression of the perfect life of Christ Himself. It would be something else, or a falsification of what Christ had set forth. This matches the principle already stated: obedience to the commandments of Christ. What He said was the expression of what He was.

Anyone claiming to write something new about this life would be making the false claim to give light beyond what is already perfectly expressed in Christ.

God's ways towards His people may vary with their faithfulness or unfaithfulness... but God's plans never change: His purposes are eternal... It is always so. In the darkest times faith finds its refuge in "that which was from the beginning."

They were looking for something new. One thing, he says, I boast of is that it is old, because it is what Christ was when He was on the earth. But if you want something new, it is Christ as your life by the Holy Spirit now. It was true in Him when He was here below, but now all this truth of the divine nature is as true of you as of Christ. It is old, because it was in Christ Himself; but it is new, because it is in you, as well as in Christ Himself.

The second proof is love in verses 7-11. It was an old commandment without power when our Lord was here with His disciples. It became a new one when He died and rose. It was always true in Him, and then, in that way, it became "true in him and in you."

The old commandment was true in Christ. When He said it, He loved them all, as none could love but God. He loved them perfectly. Do you imagine that they loved one another at that time? Were they not as jealous of each other as you could well imagine godly people to be? We find them always ready to quarrel, keenly arguing which of them should be greatest.

The Gospel shows us things that are true in Him. But the Epistle speaks of "a new commandment … which thing is true in Him and in you" (1 John 2:8). This brief sentence gives us a key to the whole letter.

Note the remarkable contrast between John 1:5, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it," and 1 John 2:8. … In His life He was the Light of men. But men were darkness, opposite in nature, and the Light did not dispel the darkness at all. It stayed, as before, darkness, and did not take in the Light. But redemption came in — there was a new state of things. Christ had overcome the power of darkness, and brought into existence a new condition of men in resurrection.

The Apostle wrote, "The darkness is passing," and not, "is past." We must wait for the world to come before we can say it is past. Yet it is clearly passing away, for the true light has begun to shine in Christ and in those that are His. When God acts in judgment and puts out the false life and light of this world, then the darkness will be past indeed.

The darkness then is not past, indeed far from it; but it is passing. Where? In every added Christian. … wherever grace acts, and no matter where, if there are fresh saints of God, the darkness so far passes away. It passes effectively in every Christian.

In Him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). But in us the darkness is passing. The true light already shines — the life of Christ (and the life was the light of men) given to us and displayed in us. In us the light may shine only a little, and may dispel only a little of the darkness — yet in wonderful grace He credits us with it being "true in him and in you."

"Saying" has a bad character in this letter. The true saint of God does not speak casually about being in the light. He knows he is, he blesses God for it, but he is serious about what is so solemn. He leaves it to others to boast, "I am in the light," while they mean, about a true saint, "You are in the dark." What could be more insulting to the Lord, or less worthy of a Christian? The right and true course is not saying but showing that one walks in the light by a godly life.

To claim to be a child of God, to claim to be born from above, to say, We know God and dwell in the Son, is to claim to be in the light — the light of life. But a person can make that claim when the reality behind it is missing. So claims have to be tested, and the test of this one is very simple. If there is no active love toward those who share the same nature and life, the claim to be in the light is a false claim.

If the light is now going to shine in and through us, we ourselves must be in the light. If anyone says he is in the light and yet hates his brother, his claim is false. He is in darkness. That is, he does not know God — he is not in the light of God revealed in Christ. No one can be in the light of God who is not in the life of God, which is love.

Notice, he does not say only that he is in darkness now, as some would have it. That is true, but not the whole truth. He is in the darkness, and he never was out of it. He is in the darkness until now. That does not allow the possibility of a soul having been in the light, in the sense in which John is speaking here, and getting out of it again.

Notice that it is a claim; a profession. The Lord always takes men up on their profession. His profession sets his responsibility. In his actual state he is not a brother. As to his profession he has brothers that he ought to love. His hatred of them proves that he is in the darkness.

This is not hating the traits of the flesh in a Christian. It is hating the believer because he has the life that shone in all its loveliness in the Son of God… A true believer loves other believers because they are his brothers, because they share the divine nature and belong to the family of God. The flesh may show itself, in us or in them, and hold that love back. But the love is there, and it is normal for a believer to express it.

If a brother is hard, impatient, or faulty in some other way, this is meant to test you. Be all the more careful if anything in him upsets you. But why should not your heart go out to win him? Why give up love where it is so much needed? You ought also to pity, if you believe a brother has done serious wrong. Should he not be a matter for your earnest prayer to God, however much you condemn the evil?

I find the apostle John saying, "Whoever loves his brother abides in the light." He does not say, "Whoever abides in the light loves his brother." Of course that is quite true. But my loving my brother is the evidence that I abide in the light. And the result follows: "in him there is no cause for stumbling."

Whoever loves his brother abides in the light. He doesn't have to say he is in the light. He doesn't make claims about himself. The love he expresses, flowing from the life that he has, proves it.

So far we have had the first great principle of the divine life — obedience — walking in righteousness. Now comes the other side: loving the brothers and sisters. You are in the light, for God is light. Well then, God is love, and you cannot have one part of God without the other. If you have the light, you must have the love. When Christ was here, He was the light of the world. But He was love too. So if you have Him as your nature, you will have both.

You find mere pleasant nature in dogs and other animals. That is animal nature. But love for the brothers and sisters is a divine motive. I love them because they are of God. I have fellowship in divine things with them. A man may be very unpleasant by nature, and yet love the brothers and sisters with all his heart. Another may be very pleasant, and have no love for them at all.

This is the contrast with verse 11. There the one who hates his brother is in darkness, walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going. We have no light in ourselves, just as the moon only has light when it is in the light of the sun. So the one who hates his brother is in darkness. He is all dark himself, and so he becomes a cause of stumbling to others. He stumbles himself and acts as a stumbling-block.

If he stumbles at Christ, it is his own fault. We should never be a stumbling-block by not being like Christ. There is no greater snare, and no greater sin, than the fear of offending when Christ is the offence.

"Whoever loves his brother abides in the light"; and he loves, even though there were painful inconsistencies that made a heavy demand on his love. In this way love is only proved the more... If retaliation had been at work, or an ungracious wish for harm to someone who had failed, there would be a cause for stumbling. Such is a man's natural feeling under provocation, but it is the denial of Christ, and so of the Christian.

As so often in 1 John, the believer is seen here as in the divine nature in an absolute way. Sadly, in our mixed condition, the flesh often shows itself, and the flesh does give cause for stumbling, even in a Christian.

"Whoever hates his brother is in the darkness." This is his state, and that is what really decides the matter. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer in principle, as John shows later (1 John 3:15)... It is not just what he does or how he walks — he is in darkness. His ruthless behaviour shows it. Words and deeds proclaim his state. What are his words? "He hates his brother." And what his deeds? "He hates his brother." "He walks in the darkness." The walk shows what the man really is. We walk in the light because we are in the light. It is not a theory but a deep reality.

The first great principle of the divine life is obedience — walking in righteousness. Now comes the other side: loving the brothers. You are in the light, for God is light. Well then, God is love, and you cannot have one part of God without the other. If you have the light, you must have the love. When Christ was here, He was the light of the world. But He was love too. So if you have Him as your nature, you will have both... This is true in detail too. If I am walking in hatred toward my brothers, I am walking in darkness. But the apostle only gives the principle here.

This is not simply someone in a state of darkness. That can happen to a true Christian who falls under a cloud and holds bitter thoughts against his brother. It means someone who is in "the darkness" — a system where there is no revelation of God. "The darkness" is the absence of the revelation of God. It stands in contrast to "the true light", which is the revelation of God.

He is in the darkness, and he never was out of it. He is in the darkness until now. This leaves no room for a soul who was once in the light — in the sense John means here — and then got out of it again... Notice that it is always profession, so John tests it as such. The brother by profession counts as a brother. There is responsibility in the relationship a man professes, whether it is real or not.

There is no middle ground here. John is emphatic: a person is either in the light or in darkness. Love goes with light, and hatred goes with darkness. No true believer hates another. That is completely contrary to the new nature. But darkness is the very home of the unbeliever. What is more, he walks there. He makes progress, no doubt, but in evil. He has no definite end in view, so he is an aimless wanderer, his eyes blinded by the darkness he has chosen.

Those marked by enmity to the children of God are therefore in the darkness. They live and walk in the darkness; blinded by the darkness in which they walk, they do not know where they are going. The light of the Christian hope and prospect does not shine on their path; they do not have in their souls the cheer of trusting Christ as "the way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14:6).

This is not hating the traits of the flesh in a Christian. It is hating the believer because he has the life that shone in all its loveliness in the Son of God... A true believer loves his brothers and sisters because they are brothers and sisters. They have the divine nature and belong to the family of God. The flesh may show itself, in us or in them, and hold love back. But the love is there, and it is normal for the believer to express it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

"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.

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 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.

"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 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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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?

The knowledge of the truth is the appointed safeguard against every lie (1 John 2:21), and the only effective one.

"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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.'

"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.

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).

"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 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."

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.

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).

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.

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.

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 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.

"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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

With verse 28, the Apostle speaks again to the whole family of God. He speaks to all His children, whatever their spiritual growth or state. He had just told the babes that the Anointing was theirs, and that they could therefore "abide in Him." Now he urges the whole family to "abide in Him." What is good for the babes is good for all. This abiding is the way of all spiritual fruitfulness and growth. When we drift from Him, and our affections and interests settle on the things of the world, then we are feeble and unfruitful.

To abide in Him, then, means more than the practical surrender of our wills and distrust of ourselves. It also means clinging to Him in love, leaning on Him in our weakness, and fellowship with Him in His thoughts, as His word makes them known.

Remember that this departure was then going on. It began with Judas — or if not with Judas, then with the many disciples who turned back and walked with Him no more. They left from the time He showed that His coming in the flesh and His death are the food faith cannot do without... Confess Him if you believe; confess Him if your hearts rest on Him for life eternal. And not merely confess Him, but, whatever the pressure, abide in Him.

The word "if" does not refer to the time "when." It refers to the reality of the event, whenever the time comes for Christ to appear. There is no doubt about the future fact. It is not a question left hanging whether it is to be. But if He appears — and He surely must — He would have the saints abide in Him, and not be turned aside. Then we may have boldness and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.

If they did not abide in Him, the apostle had lost all his work. It would have been to that extent his shame. You get the same thing in the second epistle (v. 8): "Watch yourselves, so that we may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward."... The apostle here is pressing them to abide in Christ, so that he may not be ashamed of his work.

If the life is not there, then of course there is no abiding. Someone who has only assumed that he has life will be exposed when the Lord appears, and "put to shame from before Him at His coming." This cannot refer to a true believer. The believer "abides in Him," and he will not be treated as an unbeliever at the Lord's coming.

As in 1 Corinthians 3:15, so in 1 John 2:28, it is only a question of the Lord's dealings about their labours, and not about their righteousness. Some fear that pure grace and the certainty of salvation would let people follow their own will. But suppose a father said to his son, "You are my son; you will always be my son." Would he add, "So you can do whatever you like"? No. He would say, "You ought to behave as my son."