Chapter Two

Christ is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world (1-2). Knowledge of him and fellowship with him as light in the active fulfillment of God’s commandments, especially the commandment of love (3-11). The universality and accessibility of salvation in Christ (12-14). Love of the world hostile to fellowship with God (15-16). Signs of the approach of the last world age (17-19). The true teaching of Christ in opposition to anti-Christian teaching (20-27).

1 John 2:1. My children! I write this to you so that you do not sin; and if anyone sins, we have an advocate before the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one; 1 John 2:2. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world. Wishing to prevent the possibility of misinterpreting the teaching set forth in 1:5-10, the holy John the Theologian with touching fatherly tenderness clearly reminds readers that what he has written in these verses cannot in any way serve as justification for a careless attitude toward sin and its various forms; on the contrary: the purpose there was to turn readers and Christians in general away from sin: “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” But at the same time, for people of especially tender conscience, sincerely seeking freedom from sin and true Christian perfection, but deeply conscious of the sinfulness of human nature, the Apostle adds encouragement in faith in the all-powerful intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ, the great and eternal Intercessor (Greek: parakletos) for humanity before God the Father (compare 1 Tim 2:5). “The Apostle, knowing that our nature is unstable and sinful, that we always carry in ourselves inclination to evil, that the envious devil hinders our salvation with his deceits, that therefore even those who have been reconciled with God through confession, if they live carelessly, will not escape sin, now teaches that if we should fall after the forgiveness of sins, we should not despair. For if we turn back, we can again receive salvation through the mediation of the Lord Jesus Christ, because he, interceding for us before the Father, will make propitiation for our sins, and not for ours alone but also for the sins of the whole world. The Apostle said this because he was writing to Jews, saying so to show that the benefit of repentance is not limited to them alone but extends also to the gentiles, or that this promise refers not to the contemporaries alone but to all people of succeeding ages. He calls Jesus Christ our Intercessor, beseeching or persuading the Father with a special purpose, namely, to show that the Son has one nature and one power with the Father, and that the action of one of the three most holy Persons appears as common to the other persons” (Theophylact the Blessed).

1 John 2:3. And that we have known Him we recognize from this, that we keep His commandments. 1 John 2:4. Whoever says, “I have known Him,” but does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; 1 John 2:5. but whoever keeps His word, in him truly the love of God has been perfected: from this we recognize that we are in Him. 1 John 2:6. Whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk just as He walked. Having set forth the foundational dogma of Christian faith—Christ as the Redeemer and Intercessor of humanity and the whole world—the Apostle now points out the indispensable condition by which the Savior’s intercession will be effective and saving for us, namely: the keeping of his commandments, the active realization of his will, not mere intellectual knowledge of him. Having apparently in mind certain false teachers who boasted of their Christian knowledge but did nothing to put this knowledge into practice (verses 4-6), the Apostle insists with all force that the correct relationship of a person to God and the purity of his knowledge are revealed only by his corresponding life conduct. The keeping of God’s commandments by us (verses 3-5) serves as the best proof that we know God. In this, the living link between knowledge of God and the keeping of his commandments is true Christian love. “Perfect love,” it is said, “is proved by deeds. But how it happens that some (apparently) correctly and exactly keep the commandments, yet their inner disposition is unclean, and they are far from God; the Apostle says that one who belongs to God must also live in a way that befits closeness to God.... And he confirms the same thing from the opposite side, using the most complete proof” (Theophylact the Blessed). Christ the Savior, who realized God’s will in all its fullness, should be the permanent model of life conduct (verse 6; see 1 Pet 2:21; John 8:29).

1 John 2:7. Beloved! I write to you not a new commandment, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. 1 John 2:8. Yet I do write a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you: because the darkness passes away and the true light already shines. Having given readers the instruction to keep the commandments (verses 3-5), especially the commandment of love, and having pointed to the highest model of love and of Christian perfection in general in the Lord Jesus Christ (verse 6), the Apostle, as if anticipating a possible objection from readers about the difficulty of fulfilling this covenant and this imitation, now testifies that what he is setting forth is not something new but constitutes an ancient (Lev 19:18), though at the same time also new, commandment. “Since this Epistle is a general epistle, written to all in common, to Jews and Gentiles, then in relation to the Jews it can be said that the Apostle writes them the commandment of love not as a new one but as an ancient one. For even on the tablets of Moses it was written: ‘love, after God, your neighbor as yourself’ (Lev 19:18).... The law of love to neighbors is written also in the gentiles. How so? It is written in them on the tablets of the heart by natural thoughts.... Thus, even the gentiles received the ancient law or commandment, for nature itself prescribes that we be gentle with one another; on account of this man is a social animal, and this is impossible without love. In ancient histories it is even recorded that many such people died for others, which is the sign of the highest love, as our Savior explained, saying: ‘Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’ (John 15:13)” (Theophylact the Blessed). However, Christian love for neighbors is neither merely the natural philanthropy inherent in the human soul by nature, possible even for gentiles, nor a precept aimed at restraining passion for vengeance, as in the law of Moses, but something far exceeding both, as free love among Christians for each other in Christ’s name, as love resting on a completely new, previously unknown foundation. Thus, “love for neighbors is both an ancient and a new commandment”: it is an ancient commandment because it was communicated already in the Old Testament revelation, but it is also a new commandment, for it was fully realized only by Jesus Christ and is realized following his example in the faith of those whose lives the darkness already passes away from and in whom the true light of knowledge of God begins to shine (verses 7-8)” (Professor Archpriest D. I. Bogdashevsky, Church Works, p. 12).

1 John 2:9. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. 1 John 2:10. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause of stumbling in him. 1 John 2:11. But whoever hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. Once it is established that the true light of knowledge of God and Christian love is already shining on earth and that the gradual realization of the Christian ideal is obligatory for all Christians under the new conditions of life in Christ, it is easy to determine who belongs to this realm of light and who belongs to the opposite realm of darkness. The indisputable sign by which one can distinguish the children of light from the children of darkness is the love of brothers in Christ for neighbors (verses 9; compare John 13:34-35): the presence of this love in a person proves his actual membership in the realm of light (verse 10), while the absence of it in a person, even if he calls himself a child of light, is a sure sign that he is not a Christian, is a child of darkness (verses 9-11). “Closeness to God or love of God is first of all recognized from love of neighbors. For it is impossible for one illuminated by knowledge of God and filled with love for him to have darkness of hate toward his brother; because light and darkness at the same time in the same place cannot be together. Therefore, one illuminated by love for God and possessing God, and with respect to his brother also has light, which is kindled by love for his brother. But whoever says that he loves God while hating his brother is in constant darkness; his rational eyes are always clouded, because he has lost the light of communion with God and with his brother. He does not even know what might be beneficial to him’’ (Theophylact the Blessed). One notices that the Apostle here (verses 9 and 11) and in other places in the Epistle sets in opposition to the concept of love not the lack of love but directly hate—that is, he takes diametrically opposite concepts and places them in a mutually exclusive relationship. Although in life there are infinitely many degrees and shades of love and non-love, the Apostle views everything from an absolute perspective, from the standpoint of principle and ultimate results: for him, therefore, there exist only two kingdoms or directions—the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness; on one side God, on the other the world; there—life, here—death (compare 1 John 3:14); there—love and all means of salvation, here—hate and complete impossibility of salvation. Hence flows the purity, depth, and power of the Apostle’s Christian ethics.

1 John 2:12. I write to you, children, because your sins are forgiven because of His name. 1 John 2:13. I write to you, fathers, because you have known the One from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you have known the Father. 1 John 2:14. I have written to you, fathers, because you have known the One without beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one. Having proposed for the readers’ attention the teaching on walking in the light and the essence of worship and about love as the chief condition of the latter (1 John 1-2:8), and intending further (from verse 15 onward) to give instructions on how Christians should relate to the world, the Apostle prefaces this last warning with a strong and insistent appeal to Christians of various ages. The address: “children,” (Greek: teknia) (verse 12) and “children” (Greek: paidia) (verse 14) are not names for children in the proper sense but the fatherly address of the aged Apostle to all readers-Christians without regard to age, as is shown by the use of teknia in 1 John 2:1 and paidia in 1 John 2:18. By the other names: “fathers,” “young people” are denoted more degrees of spiritual perfection and qualities than of natural ages, though one cannot entirely exclude the latter (the word for young people does not go toward denoting spiritual maturity alone), because natural and spiritual age may coincide. The address to different ages or classes of readers is made by the Apostle in two parallel series, the first series of addresses being united by the verb “write” in the present tense, while the addresses of the second series are connected by the same verb in the form of the aorist. Distinguishing in the Christian community individual members of unequal age, spiritual and natural, the Apostle grants to all of them lofty spiritual advantages and blessings received by them in Christianity, with the purpose of turning them away from attachment to the world (verse 15). Namely, “turning first of all to all Christians in the community (teknia), the Apostle says that he writes to them because their sins are forgiven them (1 John 2:12). But forgiveness of sins presupposes knowledge of the One through whom this highest blessing has been granted to us—knowledge of the Savior Jesus Christ. Although such knowledge, like forgiveness of sins, belongs to all Christians, it particularly distinguishes the ‘fathers.’ ‘I write to you, fathers,’ says the Apostle, ‘because all of you know him who is from the beginning.’ Forgiveness of sins presupposes, further, struggle with sin and victory over it, and since this struggle has been accomplished relatively recently by young people and consequently the latter should be especially careful not to lose what has been acquired, the Apostle John, turning to them, says: ‘I write to you, young people, because all of you have conquered the evil one’ (Professor Archpriest D. I. Bogdashevsky, p. 15-16). It is possible that here is meant ‘some particularly powerful clash with heretics from which the Asian church emerged victorious, owing primarily to the energy of the younger generation’ (Professor N. I. Sagarda, p. 395). In the second address to young people (verse 14) the Apostle clarifies that the strength by which young people conquered the evil one was not their own strength of youthful vitality, but divine spiritual strength—the strength of God’s word, the Gospel, abiding in them.

1 John 2:15. Do not love the world, nor the things in the world: if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 1 John 2:16. For all that is in the world: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not from the Father, but from the world. 1 John 2:17. And the world passes away, and its lust, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. Having pointed in a particular twofold appeal to Christians of various ages to the lofty gracious state of Christians, the Apostle now more decisively expresses the warning against the world lying in evil and the deceptive goods of the world. What then is this world, the kosmos (Greek), against attachment to which the Apostle warns with particular insistence? “In order that all of you do not understand by ‘the world’ the totality of heaven and earth, the Apostle explains what the world is and what is in the world. And, first, by the world he means vicious people, who do not have in themselves the love of the Father. Secondly, by what is in the world he means what is done through fleshly lust, which, acting through the senses, arouses lust... in general everything hostile to God...” (Theophylact the Blessed). Thus, this is the world from which, according to the exhortation of the Apostle James, the true Christian should keep himself undefiled (Jas 1:27); friendship with it is enmity against God (Jas 4:4). The Apostle presents two grounds for proving the necessity of decisive and complete separation from the world: first, that love of God is incompatible with love of the world (verse 15)—incompatible because the essence of the world, its inner life, is formed by sinful, god-hostile lust of human nature corrupted by sin (compare Rom 7:7 and following verses), branching out into three chief passions—lust of the flesh or sensuality (compare Rom 8:7-8), lust of the eyes, and pride in riches—by which, as by a lever, the world lying in evil revolves, and from which the devil tempted even the Lord himself in the wilderness (Matt 4:1-11 and elsewhere); second, one need not love the world also because it cannot provide us with the constant and unchanging good toward which we strive, for the world and its desires are something flowing and passing away, while the one who does God’s will finds good that remains forever (verse 17). “Worldly lusts are short-lived and inconstant, but what is done according to God’s will is lasting and eternal.” (Theophylact).

1 John 2:18. Children! it is the last hour. And as you have heard that an antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have appeared, and from this we recognize that it is the last hour. 1 John 2:19. They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it might become clear that they are not all of us. Having mentioned that the world is passing away and approaching destruction (verse 17), the Apostle now points out the presence of signs of the approach of the “last hour” (Greek: eschate hora) of the world, that is, the approach of the concluding age of the world and the second coming of the Lord (compare Jas 5:3; 1 Pet 1:5 and elsewhere). The Apostle calls such a sign the appearance of the antichrist, Greek: antichristos, indeed many antichrists, Greek: antichristoi, that is, false teachers who overthrow the teaching about Christ the Savior and together the entire work of Christ (1 John 2:22-23; 2 John 1:7). The Apostle testifies that believers have already heard beforehand about the coming of these antichrists—namely, from the teaching and predictions of the Savior himself (John 5:43; Matt 24:24), and even more from the teaching of the Apostle Paul about the “opponent” Greek: antikeimenon (2 Thess 2:2-10). Introducing here a new name for the opponents of Christ and his teaching, the Apostle distinguishes the antichrist, identical with the “opponent” (2 Thess 2), who is to appear before the Lord’s coming to the last judgment, from the antichrists, that is, false teachers who began appearing even during the apostles, especially toward the end of the apostolic age (Simon Magus, Cerinthus, Nicolaitans, Docetists, and others). All of them are representatives of the spirit of antichrist (1 John 4:3), who is to come in the “last hour” and whose actions (as a “beast,” Greek: therion) the Apostle John describes in detail in the Apocalypse (chapter XIII). Here the Apostle, warning believers against the temptations from false teachers, notes that false teachers previously belonged to the church but then separated from it, having no real ties with it. “Why then are antichrists from the disciples of the Lord? In order to have the confidence of the deceived, so that the deceived might think that they, as from among the disciples, preach the teaching according to the mind of the Teacher and not completely contrary to his preaching. Therefore, it is said, ‘they went out from us,’ that is, though they were disciples, they departed from the truth and invented their own blasphemies. ‘Not of us,’ that is, not from the saved part. For otherwise they would have remained in union with their own” (Theophylact the Blessed).

1 John 2:20. But you have an anointing from the Holy One and you know all things. 1 John 2:21. I have written to you not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and also because every lie is not from the truth. The Apostle does not consider it necessary to provide detailed exposition about the antichrists or false teachers: as Christians, the readers of the Epistle possess clear consciousness of the truth from an infallible source—from the divine gift of “anointing from the Holy One” (Greek: chrisma apo tou Hagiou, that is, from Jesus Christ, compare verse 27), which imparts to all believers the gifts of the Holy Spirit through a particular visible action (2 Cor 1:21; Eph 4:30), supplementing baptism (Acts 8:14-17). The Apostle writes not for the sake of teaching something new but for reminding and strengthening readers in what they have known since the first days of their Christian life. “The anointing,” the grace of the Holy Spirit, granted to Christians after baptism in the anointing with oil, gives the Christian a sure principle for discerning Christian truth from its distortion; of course, Christians, called by virtue of the grace of the anointing “kings and priests to God” (Rev 1:6), know “all things” (Greek: panta) not in an absolute sense but in a limiting sense: they know the truth of the Gospel’s proclamation, the truth of the work of salvation accomplished by Christ the Savior, the Son of God.

1 John 2:22. Who is a liar, if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. 1 John 2:23. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well. Having mentioned in 1 John 2:18 the appearance of already many antichrists or false teachers, the Apostle here points out the essence of their destructive false teaching and all its consequences. The essence of the anti-Christian teaching, according to the Apostle, lies in denying that Jesus is the Messiah—Christ who came for the salvation of people. Every false teacher who denies this fundamental truth of Christianity is a liar (Greek: pseustis) in the preeminent sense, a true antichrist, and together with his refusal to acknowledge the Son of God deprives himself of all knowledge of God: “whoever denies the Son does not have the Father” (verse 23)—because it is only from knowledge of the properties and action of the Son that one can learn the properties and action of God the Father, according to the word of the Lord himself: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father... I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:9). Thus it is undoubtedly true that the refusal to recognize the Son blocks the path to knowledge of the Father as well. “The Jews deny the Son and claim to have knowledge of the Father. But let them know that they have not yet come to know the Father either, for if they had known him, they would have come to know the Son also, because he is the Father and the Father of the only-begotten Son” (Theophylact the Blessed). But for salvation one needs not only faith in the Son of God and knowledge of him as the Father as well, but confession of him—that is, testimony by word and deed of one’s faith in him (Matt 10:32-33; Rom 9-10; 1 Tim 6:12-13).

1 John 2:24. Therefore, let what you heard from the beginning remain in you; if what you heard from the beginning remains in you, then you will remain in the Son and in the Father. 1 John 2:25. And the promise which He promised us is eternal life. To the anti-Christian false teaching the Apostle sets in opposition the Gospel good news, heard by each believer at the beginning of the Christian life. The Apostle urges Christians to keep unchanged, without any alterations or additions, the Christian truth that has been received, saying that on the condition of its abiding in them there will be realized the abiding of believers in the Son and their eternal life, according to the Savior’s promise (see John 17:21). “Keep within yourselves what all of you have heard from the beginning, namely, that Christ is God, for this is what the words ‘let it abide in all of you’ mean. If what all of you heard from the beginning remains in all of you, then all of you too will abide in the Son and in the Father, that is, all of you will be in communion with him” (Theophylact the Blessed).

1 John 2:26. This I have written to you concerning those who are deceiving you. Having concluded his discussion of false teachers, the Apostle briefly identifies the content of the preceding discussion and at the same time shows its purpose—to prevent the harmful influence of deceivers on the readers of the Epistle.

1 John 2:27. Yet the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone teach you; but as this very anointing teaches you concerning all things, and it is true and not false, remain in what it has taught you. 1 John 2:28. Therefore, children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have boldness and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. Returning to the discussion in 1 John 2:20, the Apostle now speaks in more detail about the life-giving and enlightening power of that gracious anointing, that impartation of the grace of the Holy Spirit which Christians have received from the Son of God. “The words: ‘all of you do not need anyone to teach all of you’ should be understood not in relation to each individual member of the Church separately, for in it there are children who have need of instruction, children both by age and by knowledge, who need teaching, understanding, and instruction.... For all of this the Church has and should have fathers, teachers, instructors, spiritual physicians. But in general, in essence, the Church of Christ has so much saving knowledge and so many saving means of knowledge of faith that it has no need of any other teaching or any other teachers who would want to teach something else, something not in accord with apostolic teaching preserved in the Church” (Bishop Michael). Believers are taught by the Holy Spirit himself, who pours out his gifts upon them (John 15:15). By its essence the “anointing” is a creative action of the entire Holy Trinity (2 Cor 1:21-22). In verse 28 the Apostle points out a new powerful incentive for Christians to hold unwavering to the truth of the Gospel’s proclamation: in view of the approach of the “last hour” (compare 1 John 2:18), Christians should always be ready to stand before the judgment of Christ—so that “when he is revealed we may have confidence and not be put to shame before him at his coming.” Thus, “having spoken of the appearance of antichrists and shown that all their teaching is corrupt, and having sufficiently convinced believers to keep unceasingly that teaching by which they were instructed, the Apostle then mentions the reward appointed for this, so that by the brightness of the reward he might as it were further strengthen them.... For what can be more glorious or desirable than confidence, that is, when we lay open our works in the present life, we might be able to do so with confidence, being in no way ashamed at his coming” (Theophylact).

1 John 2:29. If you know that He is righteous, know also that everyone who practices righteousness is born from Him. If previously in explaining communion with God the Apostle proceeded from the concept that “God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5), then now he uses the concept of being born of God in revealing the same subject; therefore, while in the first two chapters of the Epistle communion with God was presented as walking in light, now it is viewed as the gracious adoption of God’s children, and this latter concept is unfolded by the Apostle first from the perspective of its signs (1 John 2:9-3:24), and then from the perspective of its source (1 John 3:24-4:21). The first sign of the spiritual, gracious birth of a Christian from God is the doing of what is right in imitation of the righteous God and Christ (verse 29). “Others might have asked: what then should we do to become acceptable to him? And the Apostle teaches this as well, saying: if all of you know that he is righteous, then surely all of you know that everyone who does what is right is born of him, for the righteous one begets the righteous. And what honor and confidence this gives, each of all of you knows, as well as what great and mighty love and goodness he shows to all of you” (Theophylact).