1 John 2

God is both “faithful and just to forgive”: “faithful,” as having promised, and therefore as in good faith fulfilling; “just,” as doing a righteous thing—a thing which he can righteously do by reason of the provisions made in the atoning death of Christ. H. C.—It is Christ in our nature who has stood in our place, and offended law is satisfied in the very nature that broke it. Death is overcome in the very nature that was doomed to die. Heaven is opened by the very nature that was excluded from it. Christ in our nature, God in humanity’s form bearing the cross! Does the law come and threaten me, I refer the law to Christ; he is my substitute. Does justice come with its sword and lift it over my head to strike, I refer justice to my substitute and ask, Hath not Jesus paid the penalty that was demanded of me? An.—The penalty having been endured by the substitute of man, God’s holiness and justice no longer present a barrier to that salvation. Yea, his holiness and jusjustice are enlisted on the side of the sinner who by penitence and faith has appropriated the expiation. E. M. G.

Though God forgives once and for ever as a Judge, he forgives often as a Father. In point of fact, he justifies us when we believe, and renews the sense of his pardon when we return to him at the throne of grace, and take a believing look at the Saviour. J. Hall.—The forgiven soul may daily sin, and come under God’s fatherly displeasure, and so need a daily renewal of the joys of salvation at the mercy-seat; but he can never come again under the divine wrath and curse. His Father in heaven may visit his transgressions with the rod of correction; “nevertheless, his loving-kindness will he not utterly take from him, nor suffer his faithfulness to fail.” The forgiveness of sins is the pledge of all spiritual blessings. Like a tree of life it stands in the garden of God’s delights, thrusting its roots downward, and lifting its branches upward laden with precious fruits. It is preceded and followed by the graces of the Spirit, the joys of salvation, the glories of heaven. V. D.

1. My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, 2 we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propiti- 3 tion for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And 4 hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know 6 we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, 7 even as he walked. Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old com- mandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which 8 ye have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which 9 thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now 10 shineth. He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until 11 now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stum- 12 bling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and 13 knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake. I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, 14 because ye have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. 15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, 16 the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abid- eth for ever.

18. Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even 19 now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not 20 all of us. But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. I have not 21 written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is 22 of the truth. Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is anti- 23 christ that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath 24 not the Father: [but] he that acknowledged the Son hath the Father also. Let that there- fore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Fa- 25 ther. And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life. These things 26 have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing which ye 27 have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath 28 taught you, ye shall abide in him. And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he 29 shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming. If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.

RELIGION does something better than sigh and muse over the perishableness of earthly things; it finds in them the seed of immortality. No work done for Christ perishes. No action that helps to mold the deathless mind of a saint of God is ever lost. Live for Christ in the world, and you carry out with you into eternity all of the results of the world’s business that are worth the keeping. The river of life sweeps on, but the gold grains it held in solution are left behind, deposited in the holy heart. “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” The world’s scenes of business may fade on our sight, the noise of its restless pursuits may fall no more upon our ear, when we pass to meet our God; but not one unselfish thought, not one kind and gentle word, not one act of self-sacrificing love done for Jesus’ sake, in the midst of our common work, but will have left an indelible impress on the soul, which will go out with it to its eternal destiny. So live, then, that this may be the result of your labors. So live that your work, whether in the Church or in the world, may become a discipline for that glorious state of being in which the Church and the world shall become one; where work shall be worship, and labor shall be rest. Caird.

1. My children.** The hour for work had sounded in the first place for Simon Peter. He had founded the Church in Israel, and planted the standard of the new covenant on the ruins of the theocracy. Paul had followed. His task had been to liberate the Church from the restrictions of expiring Judaism, and to open the door of the kingdom of God to the Gentiles. Then, finally, the hour sounded for John—for him who had been the first disciple, and whom his Master reserved to be the last. He completed the fusion of these heterogeneous elements, and conducted the Church to the comparative perfection of which it was then susceptible. According to all the traditions, John never had any other spouse than the Church of the Lord, nor any other family than that which he salutes in his Epistles by the title of “my children.” Godet.

That ye sin not. This is the great and blessed end—sinlessness, like that of the sinless One. “This,” says Calvin, “is not only a summing-up of what goes before, but, so to speak, a recapitulation of the whole gospel, that we should cease from sin.” And when the soul has proceeded thus far in experience, and breaketh for the longing which it hath to be loosed from the loathsome and gigantic foe, which wrestles with it only to defile and poison, the news it hails on bended knees is glad news, for it is gospel. J. W. A.

We have an advocate. Sin hath made a breach; there needs a mediator to heal it. God and sinful man are two, and they can not be made one but by a third. Christ appears for us in heaven, a faithful Advocate. His intercession is a part of his priestly office. We have a faithful High Priest, therefore a faithful Advocate. He lays our cause to heart; our cause is his cause. He hath espoused the interests of his people, and does all upon his own account. Caryl.—The Greek word, of frequent occurrence and great preciousness, sometimes means one who takes up his client’s cause to carry it through by pleadings and acts—an advocate; sometimes one who goes forth to make peace between two parties, beseeching for an offender—an intercessor; sometimes one who stands by the sinking sufferer, uttering words of consolation and strength—a comforter. All these offices concur in Jesus Christ, who is our Advocate to urge our cause, an Intercessor to make our peace, our Comforter to fill us with joy; and hence one might almost wish the text had said, “If any man sin, we have a Para- cletos with the Father.” Now, though this name of love is also given to the Holy Spirit, there is something delightful in regarding both the adorable Son and the Spirit as standing toward us in this same benignant relation of manifold good. In our mind’s apprehension of divine consolation, there need be no nice discriminating between the work of the Son and the work of the Spirit, for when the Lord Jesus comforts it is by the hand of the Comforter. J. W. A.

2. “He is the propitiation,” i. e., the Propitiator—one who makes propitiation; who propitiates in the sense of making pardon possible by a righteous God, consistently with due regard to the law which sin has broken and the sacredness of the penalty which the transgressor has incurred. The way being thus opened, the infinite love of God flows out naturally and mightily in the freest forgiveness of the penitent who accepts for himself the atonement made by Jesus. H. C.—Then fix thy thought on what Christ did, what Christ suffered, what Christ is—as if thou wouldst fill the hollowness of thy soul with Christ! If he emptied himself of glory to become sin for thy salvation, must not thou be emptied of thy sinful self to become righteousness in and through his agony and the effective merits of his cross? By what other means, in what other form, is it possible for thee to stand in the presence of the Holy One? With what mind wouldst thou come before God, if not with the mind of him, in whom alone God loveth the world? S. T. C.

The death of Christ is called a propitiation, for it makes it possible for God to receive sinners into favor, and prompts to the exercise of mercy in a way consistent with the claims of justice. It is called an expiation, for it covers sin, and provides for the removal of guilt and consequent punishment. It is an atonement, both expiating and propitiating, while it brings into friendship those who were once opposed. It is vicarious or substitutional, being endured in our stead. And it is satisfactory, for it vindicates the broken law, answers all the moral purposes of punishing the transgressors, and is deemed by the Lawgiver himself to be a sufficient reason for pardoning all who believe. Its first fruit is forgiveness and peace—complacency on God’s part and confidence on ours; its ultimate fruits, redemption and salvation—that is, actual freedom from sin in its guilt, power, and misery, and in the end eternal life; redemption differing from salvation only in suggesting the price paid for these gifts. In part they are already enjoyed, but in their fullness they are yet to come. J. A.

6. Christ is not only the principle of holiness, but also the pattern of holiness to his people. They that say they abide in him must walk as he walked. His works (except those which were miraculous, and works of mediation between God and us) are our rule as well as his word. Look to Jesus when you have a race of patience to run; let your eye always be upon Christ, and draw the lines of your carriage, both in your spirits and outward actions, according to what you see in him. Caryl.—As a prophet he teaches us the way of life, and, as the best and greatest of prophets, is perfectly like his doctrine; and his acting (that in all teachers is the liveliest part of doctrine), his carriage in life and death is our great pattern and instruction. But he is more than a prophet, a priest satisfying justice for us, and a king conquering sin and death for us; an example, indeed, but more than an example, our sacrifice, our life, and all in all. It is our duty to walk as he walked, to make him the pattern of our steps; but our comfort and salvation lieth in this, that he is the propitiation for our sins (v. 2). L.

14. Victory is made so sure unto us in Jesus that the Scriptures represent us as having already obtained it: “Ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.” In Jesus all is accomplished; “we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” Monod.

15. A true Christian living in the world is like a ship sailing on the ocean. It is not the ship being in the water which will sink it, but the water getting into the ship. So in the like manner the Christian is not ruined by living in the world, which he must needs do while he remains in the body, but by the world living in him. Our daily avocations, yea, our most lawful enjoyments, have need to be narrowly watched, lest they insensibly steal upon our affections, and draw away our hearts from God. An.—All immoderate use of the world wrongs the soul in its spiritual condition, makes it sickly and feeble, full of spiritual distempers and inactivity, benumbs the graces of the Spirit and fills the soul with sleepy vapors, makes it grow secure and heavy in spiritual exercises and obstructs the way and motion of the Spirit of God. Therefore, if you would be spiritual, healthful, and vigorous, and enjoy much of the consolations of heaven, be sparing and sober in those of the earth, and what you abate of the one shall be certainly made up in the other. L.

Whoever is contriving by how little faith or how little grace, and with how large interspersing of gayeties and worldly pleasure he may make his title to salvation good, is engaged in a very critical experiment. He is trying how to be a Christian without being at all a saintly person; how to love God enough without loving him enough to be taken away from his lighter pleasures; and he really thinks that, aiming low enough to be a little of a Christian, he still may just hit the target on the lower edge. Perhaps he will, but is he sure of it? And, if he really is, what miserable economy is it to be so little in the love of God and the joys of a glorious devotion, that he can be just empty enough to want his deficit made up by amusements! If that will answer, a very mean soul certainly can be saved. H. B.—The heart and affections of man are too precious to be wasted. Lay not out your rich capital of faith and hope and love and admiration upon the poor, precarious investments this world at best can offer you! Impress upon your hearts the conviction that not one energy of all this host of energies but was primarily designed for heaven; and open in this blessed belief the full tide of your affections to that world where alone they can ever find repose! Realize the presence of God by faith, know him as he is in Christ Jesus, and, I will not say love him—to know him thus is to love him. W. A. B.

16. Worldliness is determined by the spirit of a life, not the objects with which the life is conversant. It is not the “flesh,” nor the “eye,” nor “life” which are forbidden, but it is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. It is not this earth, nor the men who inhabit it, nor the sphere of our legitimate activity, that we may not love, but the way in which the love is given. Worldliness consists in these three things: attachment to the outward, attachment to the transitory, attachment to the unreal, in opposition to love for the inward, the eternal, the true; and the one of these affections is necessarily expelled by the other. “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” F. W. R.—The sin of the man in whom the love of the world predominates is of deliberate choice, and it engages the whole man in pursuit of its own ends. It is not an error about the means, it is not seeking a right end in a mistaken way, but it is pursuing a false and pernicious end with care, anxiety, and self-approbation. Hence it is called in Scripture idolatry, not from any resemblance it has to the outward act of falling down before stocks or stones, but because it entirely displaces our affections from their proper object, and leads them to the preference of an unjust and delusive rival. R. W.

17. Lust is in Scripture the usual name of all the irregular and sinful desires of the heart, both the polluted habits of them and their corrupt streams, both as they are within and outwardly vent themselves in the lives of men. The apostle here calls it the lust of the world, and, verse 15, love of the world; and then, verse 16, branches it into those three that are indeed the base anti-trinity that the world worships, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. L.

The World. The Bible touches us because it seems to know all about this “world”—this aggregate of disorder with purposes of order all through it, this sea of tempest with its tides of law, this mixture of insignificant trifles with the most appalling solemnities, this storehouse of life and activity and influence which we are crowding on and crowded by every day, out of which come the shaping forces of our life, which we call the world. The Bible knows all about it, and so we listen when the Bible speaks. P. B.

Passeth away. The strange thing is, not that amid the world’s work we should be able to think of our home, but that we should ever be able to forget it; and the stranger, sadder still, that, while the little day of life is passing—morning, noontide, evening, each stage more rapid than the last—while to many the shadows are already fast lengthening, and the declining sun warns them that “the night is at hand wherein no man can work”—there should be those among us whose whole thoughts are absorbed in the business of the world, and to whom the reflection never occurs that soon they must go out into eternity without a friend, without a home! Caird.

Doeth the will abideth. The one business of life with us now is that we do the divine will. There is a will of God for us in, and right through, every day—running along the line of its duties and cares; a will which we are to discover; which we are to do; and in the doing of which we consolidate our immortality. Every duty faithfully done is like a stone built in, that shall abide. And love and prayer will add cohesion. And suffering patience will give depth and strength. And hope and aspiration will bring tenderness and beauty. Every active and every passive grace will contribute something to the completeness and permanency of the life that is set in obedience to the will of God. And the thing to be desired is (so simple and yet so difficult), that we should lay this idea along our whole life, and make it touch every part of it. And all this, not on high days and at special times alone, but, as much as we can, at all times, and in all things—in the sanctuary, in the city; when we eat and when we pray; when we are glad in the joy of life and when our tears fall like rain. In all we are to do the will of God, and then and thus we live upon the flow of his being; we participate, as far as creature can, in his immortality; at his bidding we put forth our hand and take of the tree of life and live for ever. A. R.

18. The solemn asseveration of the apostle is that this under which we live is the final economy, and that with its close will terminate for ever the probation of mankind. For, when the glorious helps to holiness provided by this last economy are reviewed, it is to see that God has lavished upon these arrangements all the resources of his love and wisdom, and that nothing more could have been done to his vineyard which he has not done in it. He has put in operation motives more than adequate to the resistance of every temptation; has offered full and free forgiveness through the blood of Christ, together with the gift of his indwelling Spirit; has issued a perfect law for our moral guidance, and a prediction fraught as much with comfort to one class of characters as with terror to another; and we may safely challenge any one to point out what he could have done beyond this consistently with the maintenance of a state of probation. Reason, therefore, echoes back the solemn accents of inspiration, when she asserts that the passing bell of the economies is being rung at present, that with the close of this periodic time trial will expire: “Little children, it is the last time.” E. M. G.

19. Though some should wholly forsake the way of godliness, wherein they seemed to walk, yet why should that reflect upon such as are real and steadfast in it? They went out from us, says the apostle, but were not of us. Offenses of this kind must be, but the woe rests on him by whom they come, not on other Christians. Religion itself remains still the same, whatsoever be the failings and blots of one or more that profess it. It is pure and spotless; if it teach not holiness and meekness and humility, and all good purely, then except against it. But, if it be a straight, golden reed by which the temple is measured, then let it have its own esteem, both of straightness and preciousness, whatsoever unevenness be found in those that profess to receive it. L.—As there are trees and herbs that are wholly right and noble, fit indeed for the vineyard, so there are also their semblance, but wild; not right, but ignoble. There is the grape, and the wild grape; the vine, and the wild vine; the rose, and the canker-rose. There are also in the world a generation of professors that, notwithstanding their profession, are wild by nature; yea, such as were never planted into the good olive-tree. Now these can bring forth nothing but wild-olive berries; they can not bring forth fruit unto God. Such are all those that have lightly taken up a profession, and crept into the vineyard without a new birth and the blessing of regeneration. Bun.

20. Apostolical authority and direct revelation diffuse over the Epistles their certainty and their majesty; but yet the presence of these more commanding elements is not suffered to overpower that general character of doctrine, which is proper for those who are of full age, and who have themselves “an unction from the Holy One, that they may know all things.” The mind of the teacher still enters into a free companionship with the mind that is taught, so as to exercise and educate the spiritual faculties, at the same time conducting them with decisive authority to conclusions which they might else have failed to reach. T. D. B.

23. In our English version the last clause of this verse is put in italics, indicating doubt of its being genuine. There seems to be not the least occasion for this doubt. The best manuscripts contain it, and the course of thought with this clause included is entirely in harmony with John’s habit. To deny the Son is to lose the Father; to confess the Son retains to us the Father—two propositions mutually correlated to each other. H. C.

25. Not that we shall be exempt from loss, disappointment, sickness, human unkindness, embarrassment, vexation, humiliation; not that we shall have in this world all the displays of providential favor on which we may have calculated; these are not the things promised; the promise that he hath promised us is eternal life. God may have dealt strangely with thee; but say frankly, has he at all dealt with thee in a way to hinder the fulfillment of the promise made thee? He that believeth hath eternal life; he hath entered upon it; he is living a new life, one that stretches out into eternity; but what he has experienced is only the beginning of it. G. B.

28. Abide in him.** The presence of Jesus, our divine Lord, will make our lives not only solemn, but also strong and vigorous. It will quicken and sustain every energy. He is with us who loves us with more than a father’s affection, more than a mother’s tenderness, more than a brother’s sympathy, more than a friend’s faithfulness. This thought will animate us. We need never be lonely and faint. In all the meditations of our hearts, in our intercourse with men, in our silent and secret sorrows and struggles, his presence is our rest and strength. A. S.

At his coming. We are not yet in our home; not as yet do we reign; things around us still dazzle us; self-pleased thoughts may yet mislead us; we have still, while yet we are in the flesh, to strike closer and closer into the narrow way, closer and closer to cleave to God, more and more to part with all which would keep us from God. Wherever, then, we may be in the course heavenward, morning by morning let us place before ourselves that morning which has no evening; and purpose we to do that, and that only, which we shall wish we had done, when we shall see it in the light of that morning when in the brightness of his presence every plea of self-love which now clouds our eyes shall melt away. Evening by evening set we before us that night “wherein no man can work”; and resolve we, by God’s grace, in union with the all-atoming sacrifice, to love nothing, to prize nothing,

to wish for nothing, to fear nothing, to hold nothing, to regret nothing, but what we shall love, prize, wish for, or be glad we had feared, held, regretted, when our Saviour and Judge’s voice shall utter those dread

words, “It is done.” So, baring ourselves more and more of all unpleasing unto him, shall we, with less sluggish steps, follow him who emptied himself of all which was his that he might give us all. Pusey.