1 John 2:20

Just before this passage John warned his readers against loving the world, which passes away, while “he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” (1 John 2:15–17). Earlier he wrote that God is light and that we are to walk in his light (1 John 1:5–10), that Jesus Christ is our advocate with the Father and the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:1–2), and that the new commandment is to love one another (1 John 2:7–11). He has also encouraged the little children, fathers and young men in their victory over the wicked one (1 John 2:12–14). Now he turns to a danger that has come from inside the church itself.

He calls his readers “Little children”, paidíon, a diminutive of the word for a child. In the New Testament it has lost most of that “little” sense, though it can keep an affectionate warmth, and John uses it of his readers more than once (1 John 2:13). It is the voice of an old pastor who loves his people and is about to warn them of something grave.

“It is the last time” is literally “the last hour”. Éschatos means last, final or farthest, in place or in time, and here it is joined to the word for an hour, hṓra. The prophets spoke of what God would do in the last days (Isaiah 2:2, Daniel 10:14), and John tells his readers that they are living in that time now. It began with Christ’s coming, his death and his resurrection, and it runs on to his return. It is the final and decisive age of God’s work of salvation, and the church has lived in it ever since. John says this to make his readers watchful and discerning.

His proof is the antichrists themselves: “even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.” Their appearing is a sign that belongs to this age within God’s own plan for it, and it shows that the struggle between truth and error is going on now.

The antichrists had been insiders. “They went out from us”: exérchomai is the ordinary verb for going or coming out, for departing. These people had been part of the visible church, some perhaps with real influence in it, and they chose to leave.

“But they were not of us.” The preposition ek means “from” or “out of”, and “of us” describes people who truly belong to the fellowship of believers, the fellowship of those joined to Christ. John’s proof is simple: “if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us.” “Continued” is ménō, to stay, remain or abide, the verb that runs all through this passage. Those who truly belong stay.

Their leaving had a purpose: “that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” Phaneróō means to make apparent, to bring into the open. God used their going to show plainly what had been hidden, and the believers who remained could now see the difference for themselves. Jesus said that false prophets are known by their fruits (Matthew 7:16), that the one who enters the kingdom is the one who does his Father’s will (Matthew 7:21–23), and that tares grow among the wheat until the harvest (Matthew 13:24–30). When many of his disciples turned back, the twelve stayed with him (John 6:66–69).

So staying is the mark of real faith. Jesus said that those who continue in his word are his disciples indeed, and that they shall know the truth, and the truth shall make them free (John 8:31–32). Hebrews says that we are made partakers of Christ if we hold our first confidence steadfast to the end (Hebrews 3:14).

For those who stay, this verse is a comfort. When people leave the church and its teaching, the believers who remain can stand steady, and their own continuing is a sign that they truly belong. They continue because they are joined to Christ as branches to the vine (John 15:4–7), because Christ lives in them (Galatians 2:20), and because God, who began a good work in them, will finish it (Philippians 1:6). Jesus said of his sheep, “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:27–28).

Against those who left, John sets what the believers have: “But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.” “Unction” is chrîsma, literally an ointment or a smearing, and figuratively the special endowment of the Holy Spirit. The word is close kin to Christos, the Anointed One, so the anointing ties believers to the Anointed himself. John uses chrîsma again in verse 27, where the KJV calls it “the anointing”.

In the Old Testament, kings, priests and prophets were anointed with oil as a sign that God had appointed and equipped them. That picture is fulfilled in Jesus. God anointed him with the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:38) and gave him the Spirit without measure (John 3:34). Raised and exalted, he poured out the Spirit on his people (Acts 2:33), as he had promised when he said that the Father would give them another Comforter to abide with them for ever (John 14:16–17). Every believer receives this anointing on coming to faith, and it is a share in Christ’s own. It sets believers apart and equips them to understand.

“The Holy One” uses hágios, holy, set apart, pure. The title points to God, and here especially to Christ, the Holy One of God whom Peter confessed (John 6:69) and who sends the Spirit. Verse 27 says the anointing was received “of him”, and its source gives it its purity and its authority.

Having told his readers that they know, John explains why he writes at all: “I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it”. His readers are established believers, and his letter confirms what they already hold and helps them apply it to the false teaching in front of them. “Know” is the same eídō as in verse 20.

“Truth” is alḗtheia, what is real and so, and in Scripture it is God’s revelation of himself, above all in Jesus, who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). The truth John’s readers know is the truth about him: that he is the Son of God, that he came in the flesh, and that he died and rose again. Jesus said to the Father, “thy word is truth” (John 17:17), and Christ is “the faithful and true witness” (Revelation 3:14).

“And that no lie is of the truth.” “Lie” is pseûdos, a falsehood or untruth, and the “of” is the same ek as in verse 19. John is speaking of where a lie comes from, and its source lies outside the truth altogether. Truth and falsehood are opposites at their root, so every teaching can be tested. Jesus named the source of lies when he called the devil a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44). That is why the denial in the next verse is so serious.

The liar is the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ. John puts it as a question whose answer is plain: “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?” Pseústēs is a liar, one who speaks falsehood, from the verb to lie. Arnéomai means to deny, refuse, disown or say no. The liar says no to the central confession of the faith, that Jesus is the Christ, the promised Messiah, the Anointed One of God. Peter made that confession: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). John wrote his Gospel “that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31).

“He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.” Here John defines the word. To deny the Son is to deny the Father, because the Father has made himself known in the Son. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18). Jesus said, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30), and “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). He is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15), the Son by whom God has spoken in these last days, the brightness of his glory (Hebrews 1:1–3).

“Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning.” “Heard” is akoúō, to hear, and “beginning” is archḗ, here the start of their life in Christ, when the gospel was first preached to them. That message came from eyewitnesses: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes” (1 John 1:1–3). The false teaching was new, and the gospel heard at the beginning is the unchanging standard by which every later teaching is measured.

In this one verse “abide”, “remain” and “continue” all render ménō. The English variety hides how John keeps returning to the one verb. If the message stays in them, they will stay in the Son and in the Father, and the Son is named first because he is the way to the Father. Jesus said, “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4–7). Christ himself is the content of what they heard, the Word of life, so to keep that message is to keep hold of him.

“And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.” Epangelía is an announcement or promise, and Strong’s adds “especially a divine assurance of good”. The verb epangéllō is built on the same root, so the KJV’s “the promise that he hath promised” echoes the Greek. “He”, autós, is God, named as the Son and the Father in the verses just before, and “us”, hēmîn, is simply “to us”, John and his readers. The opening “And” is kaí, the plain particle for “and”, “also” and “even”, and the same particle stands behind “even”, where it names what the promise is. Coming right after verse 24, the promise belongs to those who abide in the Son and in the Father.

The promise is sure because of the one who made it. Paul speaks of the “hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began” (Titus 1:2), and “all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen” (2 Corinthians 1:20).

Aiṓnios means eternal, lasting without limit of time, and zōḗ means life. Jesus tells us what that life is: “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). So the life that lasts for ever is the life of knowing God through his Son. Of the Word, John wrote, “In him was life” (John 1:4), and he closes this letter by saying of Jesus Christ, “This is the true God, and eternal life” (1 John 5:20). God gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should have everlasting life (John 3:16), and “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

“These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you.” Gráphō is the ordinary verb to write, and “these things” are what John has just said about the antichrists and their denial of the Father and the Son. Perí here marks the subject, “concerning”. “Seduce” is planáō, to cause someone to wander from safety or truth, to lead astray, to deceive, and it comes from plánē, a wandering. The people who went out (verse 19) were still trying to draw the believers after them, and John writes to protect his children from them.

Scripture warns of such people often. Peter writes of false teachers who would bring in destructive heresies (2 Peter 2:1–3). Jesus is the Good Shepherd, who knows his own sheep, and they follow his voice and flee from the voice of a stranger (John 10:1–18). Paul wants us “henceforth” to “be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:14).

This passage was written for a church that had just watched some of its own walk away, and it gives that church three things to hold. The Spirit whom Christ gives abides in every believer and teaches the truth about him. The gospel heard at the beginning still stands as the measure of every later teaching. And God has promised eternal life, and his promise holds.

It also shows us who God is. He makes himself known fully in his Son, so that whoever has the Son has the Father. He stays with his people by his Spirit and teaches them himself. He keeps those who are his, and their staying is his work in them. When teachers deny Christ and some leave, the believers who remain are held by him, and what they heard at the beginning still abides in them. As John says, “ye shall abide in him.”