28 - 1Jn 2:21
Οὐκ ἔγραψα ὑμῖν, ὅτι οὐκ οἴδατε τὴν ἀλήθειαν, ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι οἴδατε αὐτὴν, καὶ ὅτι πᾶν ψεῦδος ἐκ τῆς ἀληθείας οὐκ ἔστι. For it is not only as matter of fact that the church, through the anointing of the Spirit, is severed from the world to God: it is such also theoretically and in point of knowledge. They know through the Spirit’s power how to distinguish truth itself from error: οἴδατεπάντα [“you know all things”], the apostle adds. And what is first as to the form laid down as πάντα [“all things”], is now as to the matter defined as ἀλήθεια [“truth”]: the latter is the concrete substance of the πάντα [“all things”]; it gives the quality and meaning of the εἰδέναι [“know”], as πάντα [“all things”] gives its range and comprehension. When studying 1Jn 1:6 we recognised the ἀλήθεια [“truth”] to mean the collective fulness of all real being which dwells in God, as the πλήρωματοῦπάνταἐν πᾶσινπληρουμένου [“the fullness of Him who fills all in all” cf. Eph 1:23]. So it is here; because Christians have the χρίσμα [“anointing”], and are brought over out of the world into the fellowship of God and His kingdom, therefore they also have a certain knowledge of all things that are in that divine kingdom and have to do with it; they know the fulness of its possessions, with the powers and energies that work in it; and all this together is the ἀλήθεια [“truth”]. And indeed they know all things, and therefore πάσαντὴν ἀλήθειαν [“all the truth”]; because in the Spirit of God, whom they possess, all this fulness lies enfolded and hid; the possession of Him, therefore, includes, although ever so potentially alone, the whole compass of this knowledge. But the εἰδέναι πάντα [“you know all things”] has another side to it, and that is found in the close of the verse, καὶ ὅτι πᾶν ψεῦδος ἐκ τῆς ἀληθείας οὐκ ἔστι [“and that every lie is not of the truth”]. The καὶ ὅτι [“and that”] adjoins, that is, as is fully acknowledged by expositors, the matter of the following clause as a second and co-ordinate element in the knowledge of the truth. The first assertion, that Christians know the truth, is related to the second or new one, that they know also the incompatibility of every lie with that truth, just in the same way as the proposition, God is light, 1Jn 1:5, is related to the proposition that in Him is no darkness at all. The εἰδέναι πάντα [“you know all things”] includes a knowledge of the lie, which is here simply the knowledge concerning the absolute contrariety between it and the truth. Since there is such a thing as the lie, that is, seeming existence, to which all true and deep reality is wanting because it is sundered from God, the source and substance of the ζωή [“life”], therefore as well God as the man enlightened by God must take it up into consciousness as fact, though only as absolutely denying and rejecting it. And this absolute negation of the lie it is which receives here the emphasis: the whole weight of the sentence rests upon the πᾶν ψεῦδος [“every lie”]. The εἰδέναι πάντα [“you know all things”] is mentioned only in order to show that Christians are supposed in every particular case to know the difference between truth and lie; their knowing of the whole is to demonstrate that every part of the whole also lies in the sphere of their knowledge. The apostle’s meaning is, that, let the lie show itself in what form it may, in great things or in small, in every instance ye know it as lie as certainly as ye know that ye are forever separated from it.
Yet it is not the fact in itself that the apostle declares in 1Jn 2:21, that Christians know everything, and can distinguish the lie as lie; but his firm conviction of that fact, from which conviction and for the sake of which conviction generally he writes this Epistle, ἔγραψαὑμῖν ὅτι οἴδατε [“I wrote to because you know”],—that is, by reason of this your knowledge, prompted by it, I have written. It is the very same kind of declaration as we found, 1Jn 2:13-14, in the beginning of this section. As in this passage εἰδέναι πάντα [“you know all things”] corresponds to ἐγνωκέναι τὸν πατέρα [“know the Father”], as εἰδέναι ὅτι πᾶν ψεῦδος οὐκ ἔστι ἐκ τῆς ἀληθείας [“you know that every lie is not of the truth”] in this passage corresponds to the νενικήκατε τὸν πονηρόν [“you have overcome the evil one”] in that, so also the ἔγραψα [“I wrote”] in our present verse reproduces the same word in the former. In both cases the preterite or aorist refers back to the internal conception of the letter as a whole, the apostle speaking of that as of an historical fact preceding the actual external accomplishment of the purpose in writing; in both we might translate without impropriety, “I have brought myself to write.” And in fact we may find good reason if we seek it for the reminder concerning the apostle’s presupposition in writing the Epistle: as in the beginning of the section, so in this passage especially, the motive is obvious. The subject is the absolute and total turning away from the κόσμος [“world”]: but this presumes that already a separation of the readers from the world has taken place; were that not the case, were the preliminaries for that now to be arranged, the apostle would have had to write in a very different way; something after the manner of St. Paul, in the first part of his Roman Epistle, concerning sin and its power of corruption and ruin. But he who would exhort to μένεινἐντῷφωτὶ [“remain in the light”], must presuppose an εἶναιἐντῷφωτὶ [“to be in the light”] in those whom he exhorts. And in our passage particularly he would warn the church against every the least contact with the antichrists. But that presupposes in them the ability to detect the anti-Christian nature even in its most subtle expressions and ramifications (πᾶνψεῦδος [“every lie”]).