1 John 2

2:1) Because John has the address, “my little children,” our versions and others think that a new line of thought begins at this point; the new line of thought begins with verse 3. My little children, these things I am writing to you so that you may not sin. The endearing address (only in this verse does it have the additional “my”) seems natural when John tells his readers that he is writing these things about sin to them so that they may not sin. Jesus used τεκνία, “little children” (diminutive) in John 13:33; John uses it seven times, but it is an address that is befitting his great age and his long attachment to his readers, to whom he has ever been a kindly father. “These things” are not the ones that follow but those that precede as the purpose clause, “that you may not sin,” shows. The fact that “I am writing” is not the same as the “we are writing” occurring in 1:4 we have explained in our interpretation of 1:4.

Two false deductions might be made from 1:8–10: 1) since no Christian can ever say that he no longer sins he might think that there is no use to strive against sin (sloth, indifference, carelessness); 2) since remission is so easy, let God remit a few more sins to us (presumption, false security in sin). Either conclusion or both would be a sorry mistake. The readers must not disregard 1:5–7, the fact that we have fellowship with God who is light when we walk in the light even as he is in the light, and that then alone the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, keeps cleansing us from sin, God ever remits these sins. All that John writes has as its purpose that we may not sin. The aorist is summary and effective. To find any type of perfectionism in the tense runs counter to all that John has already said in 1:7–10 as well as to what he now writes.

And if anyone sins (second aorist subjunctive, actually does sin), we have a Paraclete with the Father, Jesus Christ, Righteous; and he is expiation regarding our sins; moreover, not regarding ours only, but also regarding the whole world. John does not say “if we sin,” but “if anyone sins,” for this act is done by the individual. Yet he continues with the plural: “a Paraclete have we,” for “anyone” only individualizes. Anyone of us may sin, none is exempt, wholly immune, and whenever anyone does actually sin, there is ready for all of us this great Paraclete of ours who takes care of all of us in this respect.

The best English word for “Paraclete” is probably “Advocate.” This word has both a forensic and a common use. Demosthenes uses it to designate the friends of the accused who voluntarily step in and personally urge the judge to decide in his favor. That is the sense of this word here because “with the Father” as well as 1:9 refer to God as the Judge in the case. In John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7, where the Holy Spirit is the Paraclete, we have a different case, for the term is there used in the nonforensic, the wider sense of one who comes to our aid. This term does not occur very often in literature; M.-M. 485 finds little in the papyri; Deissmann, Light, etc., 339, etc., finds only the meaning “advocate.” Yet the term must have been frequently used in common speech, for the Jews had it in transliteration in both the Hebrew and the Aramaic; Jesus employed it in the latter language. Παράκλητος is a verbal adjective in form and is used as a noun: “one called to another’s side in order to aid him.” It is derived from the perfect passive παρακεκλῆσθαι and not from the present active παρακαλεῖν and thus does not = ὁπαρακαλῶν, C. K. 572, etc. In his translation of John’s Gospel Luther has rendered this word Troester, which loses the passive sense and conveys only the general idea; here Luther has translated this word Fuersprecher, one who speaks in another’s behalf, and it is again nonpassive.

On πρός compare 1:2. “Father” is used also there. The case of any sinning Christian lies in the hands of the Father who sent his Son Jesus Christ to save us, and this same Jesus Christ is “face to face with,” in the very presence of the Father when our sinning is judged. Jesus spoke of the Spirit as being “another Paraclete” and thereby called himself a paraclete, but he was this in the general sense of the word. Now, since he is with the Father, he acts in the Father’s court. It is “Jesus,” he who at one time dwelt on earth in lowliness, and “Christ” adds all his official work. Δίκαιον is added qualitatively. See this designation of Christ in Acts 3:14; 7:52; 22:14 and note that it is also predicated of the Father in 1:9. Both the Judge and the Advocate are “righteous” and thus deal with any sinning Christian’s case.

“Righteous” or “Righteous One,” as here applied to “Jesus Christ,” does not refer to his deity but to Jesus as our Savior and Substitute: “a Righteous One suffered in place of unrighteous ones” (1 Pet. 3:18). Not because he is merely in and for himself “a Righteous One” does Jesus act as our Advocate; then the fact of God’s own being righteous would certainly suffice. Jesus is and can be our Advocate with the righteous Father only because he is “the Righteous One” who was slain for us (Acts 7:52; 3:14), because he “became for us from God righteousness” (1 Cor. 1:30).

1 John 2:2

2 For that reason John adds “and he is expiation regarding our sins,” etc., he as the “Righteous One” in the sense just indicated, as having suffered for unrighteous ones. Note “from all unrighteousness” in 1:9. Ἱλασμός (found only here and in 4:10) means Suehnung, Versuehnung, for which we prefer the translation “expiation” to “propitiation.” The abstract is more significant than the concrete ἱλαστήρ, “expiator” (“propitiator”), would be, since, when it is applied to a person, it combines the person with his act and the effect of the act of expiating (C.-K. 521). We prefer “expiation” because of 4:10: in his love God commissioned his Son as expiation regarding our sins. The thought is not that this expiation propitiated, placated God, for he was full of infinite love when he sent his Son; we needed expiation, needed it “regarding our sins,” need it regarding them every day when we still sin. The fact that this expiation was brought about by “the blood of Jesus, God’s Son,” we know from 1:7.

John says that it is effective, “not regarding our sins only, but also regarding the whole world.” Because John does not say “regarding the sins of the whole world,” the grammarians say that he uses oratio variata (R. 441). John advances the thought from sins to the whole world of sinners. Christ made expiation for our sins and thereby for all sinners. We understand κόσμος in the light of John 3:16 and think that it includes all men, us among them, and not only all unsaved men. John does not add this “but also” as a matter of information for us regarding other people but as assuring us that, because Christ is expiation (qualitative, without the article; like δίκαιον) “in regard to the whole world,” we are included.

Augustine and the Venerable Bede offer the interpretation that “the whole world” = ecclesia electorum per totum mundum dispersa, which Calvin seconds: sub “omnibus” reprobos non comprehendit, sed eos designat, qui simul credituri erant et qui per varias mundi plagas dispersi erant. But see 2 Pet. 2:1: the Lord bought even those who go to hell. “The whole world” includes all men who ever lived or will live.

Christ’s saving righteousness and expiation are the basis for his action as our Advocate. We have him as an Advocate (one called to our side). John does not say that the whole world has him in this capacity. As our Advocate Christ, our expiation, acts for the remission of our sins (1:9). John does not use the word “intercede” or “intercession” (Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:25). See these passages regarding the intercession.

The Second Circle of Facts, Centering on the Commandment, With Two Pertinent Samples, 2:3–17

1 John 2:3

3 We have explained the exceptional and superior structure of this letter in the introduction. On the basic section that centers in the Logos of the Life, God’s Son (1:1–4), John lays the facts that pertain to our fellowship with God through the blood of the Son (1:5–2:2). On this he lays another tier of facts, all of them pertaining to the “commandment” as this is found in the Word (v. 3–8) and expands this by adding illustrative examples, love for the brother in the faith (v. 9–11) and avoidance of love for the world (v. 12–17). This letter is not arranged in blocks that are laid side by side but is built like an inverted cone. John’s facts circle upward and outward in a natural inner sequence. Every new circular sweep has its plainly marked center so that every statement is closely integrated. The weave unfolds itself in a perfect pattern and design.

Six times “commandment” marks the new expansion in v. 3–9, it is twice used in the plural, to which “his Word” is added in v. 5. The “commandment” is not dismissed at the close of the circle; it is mentioned again in 3:23, 24; in 4:21; and in 5:2, 3. It is a help for understanding the structure to underscore the key words as they are repeated in each circle of facts.

From the true fellowship with God, which is mediated to us sinners by the blood of God’s Son (1:7) and in spite of our still sinning is preserved to us by our Advocate Christ and his expiation for all our sins, John takes us into the Word, to the ἐντολή, “the behest” or commandment which governs our entire fellowship or communion with God and thus also our fellowship with each other (1:7), so that each loves his spiritual brother, and all of us no longer love the world. The light, the truth (1:6–8), which means “his Word” (1:10), must be “in us” (1:8, 10) so that we “do” it (1:6). All this is now expanded. “His commandment” is the new term that is added, but “his Word” which occurs in 2:5 repeats this term from 1:10 as “the light” in opposition to “the darkness” in 2:9–11 repeats this same opposition from 1:5–7. In moving on and up these repetitions tell us that we are only rising and broadening, and that we must remember all that has been presented.

And in connection with this we know that we have known him: if we are keeping his commandments. As in 1:5 καί introduces us into the first upward circle, so καί again introduces us to the next circle. Ἐντούτῳ = “in connection with this”; ἐν is to be understood in its original sense. This is not instrumental ἐν (R. 591, etc.). This phrase is not resumptive as R. 700 thinks, does not resume what lies in the preceding; it signifies “in connection with this: if we are keeping,” etc. John has this same construction in 5:3; compare also 5:2 which begins with ὅταν, “when” (B.-D. 394). The “if” clause is an epexegetical apposition. We do not have οἶδα, the verb that denotes mere intellectual knowing without effect and affect in the soul of him who thus knows, but γινώσκω which has this effect and affect. “We know that we have known him” (perfect tense: ever since the gospel revealed God to us and thus also now) is a beautiful, telling statement with its repetition of knowing: γινώσκομεν … ἐγνώκαμεν.

How can we be so certain that we do know God, have known him, are not deceiving our own selves (1:8), are not lying (1:6) when we say that we have known (and do know) God? How do we know that we know? Do others not make the same claim (next verse) with the same positiveness, the same assurance? Have we a better certainty than they? To know God (γινώσκω) is to have true fellowship with him (1:6, 7). See this force of the verb as it is used by Jesus in John 10:14, 15; and the negation in Matt. 7:23; compare John 17:7, 8 where the object is the ῥήματα or words of Jesus and what these reveal about the Father and about Jesus.

John takes up the question that troubles the mind of so many young people. Is our certainty better than the certainty of men in other religions? Are we Christians merely because we are born into Christian families? If we had been born Jews or Mohammedans would we not feel just as certain and be just as right in feeling that we truly know God? Or is the certainty of the skeptic not as good as the one we claim? Is the whole of religion not a mere subjective matter, unproved, unprovable, especially to a real thinking, scientific mind?

Here is the answer. God has revealed himself, has made himself known. Those have known and know him, those know that they have known him, who are keeping his commandments.

Read John 17:7, 8. Also Matt. 28:20: “to keep all things whatsoever I did command you” to keep. Τηρεῖν = to keep and to preserve inviolate in the heart so that no one shall take away, alter, falsify, so that what we keep governs us completely. The ἐντολαί are the things that we are bidden to keep. Second Peter 2:21: “to know (ἐπιγινώσκω) the Way of the righteousness.”

Because John uses the word ἐντολαί, some think only of moral commandments such as we have in the Mosaic law. This view leads to uncertainty regarding fellowship with God (true religion). Men claim that without a “blood theology” (1:7), without an expiation (ἱλασμός, 2:2) they know God, have fellowship with him. Jesus is only a noble example to them.

John quotes ἐντολαί and ἐντολή from Jesus’ own lips (notably from John 14:15, 21, 23, 24; 15:10; Matt. 28:20); and just as Jesus does in John 14:23, 24, he identifies these “commandments” with τὸνλόγονμου, with τοὺςλόγουςμου. In v. 5 John says “keep his Word” and in 1:10 “his Word in you.” Those who do this, Jesus says, have him and the Father dwelling in them; John says that they have fellowship with God (1:6, 7) and here that they know God.

These “commandments” (“words”) or the singular this “commandment” (“Word”) are “the truth,” “the light” mentioned in 1:6–8. See how in John 17:6–8 God’s giving, Christ’s giving, the disciples’ receiving, their knowing, and their keeping “the Word” go together. The substance of this truth, light, Word, words, commandment, commandments consists of all the divine verities regarding God, and they produce actual fellowship with him in which we know him and know that we have known and know him. These verities, which are revealed and then received (John 17:8) by us and kept by us in heart and in life, give us the ultimate certainty so that we know that we have, indeed, known by the light. Only when we leave this light and go back into the darkness will doubt revive and self-deception and lying set in again.

The light, the truth, the Word, the commandment (singular or plural) are termed doctrine (2 John 9, 10) and doctrines when we think of the divine facts revealed to us and are called ethical, moral when we think of the conduct and the life produced in us. They always go together, the one is never without the other; both produce a living certainty in us which grows as strong as our keeping and our clinging to these verities become.

All true certainty must have a divine objective basis which remains what it is whether any man subjectively rests upon it or not. This basis is what we have: the Word, the light, the truth (or eternal reality, ἀλήθεια), the commandments, etc. Those who lack this divine objective basis have, in whatever they substitute in place of it, only a sham basis, an illusion. Although they cling to it with all their powers, their certainty is also a mere illusion, a nut without a kernel. God brings the divine basis of certainty, his Word, etc., (use all the synonymous terms) to us, and its very nature as ἀλήθεια or reality produces the knowledge with effect and affect (γινώσκω, ἐπίγνωσις) which constitutes certainty and ever realizes itself as what it is. It is subjective, for it fills the heart, yet it is never to be confounded with other subjective certainties, for its basis is objectively divine, and it ever attests itself as no less, is realized as no less: thus “we know (γινώσκομεν) that we have known (ἐηνώκαμεν).”

1 John 2:4

4 Since John crushes the first beginnings of Gnosticism (Cerinthus and his following), of those who made a specialty of γνῶσις as men today in a different way boast of their “science,” their knowing, he adds the issue regarding γινώσκειν, knowing. The one saying: I have known him! and not keeping his commandments is a liar, and in this one the truth is not; but he whoever keeps his Word, truly in this one the love of God has been brought to its goal. In connection with this we know that we are in him.

John varies his expressions. In 1:6, 8, 10 he has written “if we say” (aorist subjunctive) to designate false claims; in 2:1 “if anyone sins.” To indicate another false claim he now uses the substantivized participles (present, descriptive): “the one saying and not keeping” (one article with both participles).

The man who claims: “I have known God!” (the action of the perfect continues to the present as it does in v. 3) and does not keep God’s commandments is nothing but a plain liar, not merely because his claim and his conduct disagree and contradict each other, his conduct giving the lie to his claim, nor because he just fails to see this and is thus only a sadly mistaken liar—no, far worse, he is a deliberate liar: “in this one the truth is not.” This does not mean that he lacks “truthfulness,” which would be a mere tautology since every liar lacks truthfulness. The divine truth, light, Word, etc., are not “in this man”; he kept them out of his heart. This truth = God’s “commandments,” which we have explained in v. 3. He is keeping them in neither his heart nor his life. Through this truth alone we know God truly and thus have fellowship with God. This individual is an awful liar because he claims to know and to be in fellowship with God when his own repudiation of the commandments of God proclaims the fact that the divine truth and Word is not in him, the one and only means of truly knowing and having fellowship with God.

We do not reduce the force of this by referring it only to moral commandments, to the law of Moses. We apply what John states not only to those who reject the whole Word of God—Cerinthus accepted certain parts of it, so did the later heretics—but also to those who reject any part of its truth. To the extent of their rejection they are liars, to that extent the truth is not in them. In the words of 1:10: to that extent they make God a liar, and to that extent his Word is not in them. Those portions of the Word, of the truth, which they refuse to accept and to keep they call false, a lie, and thus lyingly they make God a liar. Is this language too severe for modern delicate ears? It is John’s language which he learned from Jesus who had it from God.

1 John 2:5

5 On the other hand (δέ), he whoever keeps his Word, ὃςἄν (a still different formulation), in this one the love of God has truly been brought to its goal. How so? By his love God has brought him truly to know his God, truly to have fellowship with his God. The perfect tense is the same as that found in v. 3 and 4. The fact that John uses the word “whoever” does not imply that the perfect used in this verse is gnomic (R. 897). Τελεώω = to bring to a goal. We know what that goal is: knowledge of God, fellowship with God. C.-K. 1049 is inadequate: the love is completely in him, es fehlt ihr nichts. This perfect is a passive which has God as the agent: “the love of God has been brought to its goal by God”; it is scarcely a middle: “has attained its goal for itself.”

Some think that “the love of God” has the objective genitive: our love for God has been brought to its goal. They find the same type of genitive in 2:15; 3:17; 4:12 (where the same verb is used); 5:3. But only in 5:3 does the context require the sense our love for God; in all the other passages (notably in 4:12) God’s love for us is clearly referred to. This is not clear when the verb is misunderstood. Luther has translated it ist vollendet; our versions, “is—has been—perfected.” The exponents of this view have difficulty with the thought that our love for God has attained or has been brought to perfection. They are not clear as to whether this love has been brought to a perfect stage or to some lesser stage. We are also told that John is speaking abstractly: if a man guards God’s word perfectly, that man loves God perfectly.

From 1:5 onward the discussion has centered about fellowship and communion with God; it is advanced to the thought of truly knowing him and knowing that we know him and are in union with him. All of this has been developed over against the false Gnostic claims of knowing and of being in union with God. In these Gnostics God has not been able to accomplish contact by his love; he could not get his truth (1:8; 2:4), his Word (1:10) into their hearts nor reach his goal: fellowship with him by true knowledge of him. In our case, John says, God did, indeed, reach this goal: we have the fellowship (1:7), we have known him and know that we have.

John has told us where the fault lies: these heretics deny the Logos in Jesus, his deity, the efficacy of his blood (1:7), the expiation for our sins (2:2). Here is all the love of God, for God so loved the world, etc., John 3:16. The light, the truth, the Word, the commandments of God radiate this infinite love which reaches out to cleanse sinners and to embrace them in fellowship. But here are sinners who falsely say that they do not have sins and that they have not sinned (1:8, 10). Despite all that God says about sin in his Word, sin and sins are as nothing to them; although they are uncleansed and full of the darkness they claim that they have fellowship with the God of light (1:5, 6), claim to know him intimately, and set themselves up as the ones that have real gnosis (Gnostics).

These are the things that John is saying about God’s love; he will speak about our love presently. On ἀγάπη see 4:7, 8.

In verse 3 John says: “In connection with this we know that we have known (and know) God.” He now says again, but in an advanced manner: “In connection with this (that he has just said) we know that we are in him.” The advance of thought lies in this that, instead of “we have known him,” John writes “we are in him.” As to be “in him” is “to know him,” so both = “to have fellowship with him” (1:7). Each expression illuminates the other. God’s love has brought us to this union with God, and we certainly know that it has attained this goal in us, know that we are in living connection (“fellowship”) with God.

For a discussion of “in him” we refer the reader to Rom. 6:1. We are “in connection with” (ἐν) God when his light, his truth, his Word, his commandments are “in us.” The Word is always the medium for this ἐν of the unio mystica; without this Word there is no connection with God despite all claims to the contrary. Only one divine means (the Word, etc.) reaches down from God to us sinners, cleanses us, and puts us in fellowship with God; there is no other means. To repudiate the means is to lose the result, the fellowship, the goal which God’s love would attain. This unio is spiritual; it is not properly expressed to say that it is like that of living creatures “in” the air, of fish “in” the water, of plants “in” the earth; man living and breathing “in” the air, and the air also being “in” him. God does not resemble air, water, earth. He is a person.

1 John 2:6

6 John reverts to v. la, to the fact of his writing this in order that we may not sin, and now restates it in this form: The one saying he is remaining in him is under obligation even as that One walked himself also to be walking. This is the opposite of verse 4 where ὁλέγων = the one making a false claim. John says that the one making the true claim of union with God ὀφείλει, is under obligation because of this claim, because of this abiding union with God, ever himself to walk just as “that One” did walk when he was here on earth.

John learned this word μένω from Jesus who uses it six times in John 15:4–7 when he is speaking of remaining in him, of not remaining in him, and of his words remaining in us. John uses it here when he is speaking of remaining (abiding) in God. Remaining in Christ is, of course, the same as remaining in God. The demonstrative ἐκεῖνος appears in 3:3, 5, 7, 16; 4:17, as a reference to Jesus; “that One” is at once recognized by what is predicated of him. The aorist “even as that One walked” is historical. The walk or conduct of Jesus is the model for everyone who claims that he is in union and fellowship with God.

He will follow in Jesus’ steps. He has this obligation and recognizes, obeys it. It is a spiritual obligation that is due to the inward spiritual connection with God and his abiding in this connection.

1 John 2:7

7 Fellowship with God is the essential. Heretics claim it, but their claim is a lie as John proves decisively. He and his readers have it; John proves that statement and even shows how they know beyond a doubt that they have it. But having fellowship with God means also that John and his readers have fellowship “with one another.” In 1:7 this fact is stated without elaboration. The elaboration now follows. This mutual fellowship is a second vital point for John and for his readers. The heretics, Cerinthus and his followers, were seeking to break up this fellowship. They were trying to make apostates of John’s readers so that they should hate the brethren whom they had loved, hate the true fellowship in which they had been. This is the historical background for v. 7–11.

Verses 7, 8 form the preamble to v. 9–11. We shall see that v. 12–14 likewise form the preamble to v. 15–17. The substitution of a fictitious fellowship with God always has as its correlate the sundering of fellowship with those who are in the true fellowship with God, who hold to the blood of Jesus, God’s Son (1:7), to his expiation for constant cleansing from sins (2:1); it always entails a separation from those who hold to the Word, the truth, etc., and walk as Jesus walked.

Beloved, not a new commandment am I writing to you but an old commandment which you had from the beginning. The commandment, this old one, is the Word which you did hear. Again, a new commandment am I writing to you, the thing that is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the light, the genuine one, is already shining.

John’s love for his readers prompts the address “beloved”; and he now asks them to remain in the fellowship of mutual love. What he is writing is not a new commandment, καινή, that is to take the place of an old one which has directed them to this time; no, it is an old one, the one they had had from the start, when they were first brought into fellowship with God and into fellowship with each other by means of the gospel, the blood of the Son, etc. The phrase ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς always gets its meaning from the context which is here not the same as it was in 1:1. Here the imperfect εἴχετε shows that the beginning referred to is that which began the having of the commandment on the part of John’s readers.

We are pleased to note that John himself now defines just what he means by “the commandment”; it is the λόγος or Word which his readers did hear, which they heard in the beginning when by it they came into fellowship with God, etc. John has already so defined it in 1:10 where he calls the light and the truth God’s Word. In 2:3, 4 he uses the plural “commandments,” individual parts of the one Word; he now writes the singular “commandment” and looks at the parts as a unit. Jesus uses both λόγος and λόγοι, the Word and its parts, the words, in the same way.

It is important to note that by “commandment” John means “the Word which you heard,” the Word that is “in you” by faith, that is not in those who contradict it and make God himself a liar (1:10). It is called a commandment or commandments because we are bidden to receive, to believe, to keep, to follow it. It is full of these blessed imperatives; note those mentioned in Acts 2:38 when the gospel won 3, 000; in Acts 16:31; 17:30; and in many other passages. Obeying the Word so often means believing it; disobeying it is unbelief. John is not speaking of a moral commandment, of the law that demands love, or of this law as it is used in the gospel.

1 John 2:8

8 ΙΙάλιν = wiederum and means that, looking at it once more, what John is writing can, nevertheless, be called “a new commandment.” We regard ὅ with its added causal clause as an apposition to ἐντολὴνκαινήν: what John is writing, old as it is to his readers, is, nevertheless, a new commandment, new as being “the thing that is true (neuter) in him (Christ) and in you,” true and thus new in connection with Christ and John’s readers “because the darkness is passing away and the light, the genuine one, is already shining.” At one time the darkness of paganism enshrouded the readers, now the genuine light is in them. Christ and the gospel have come into their hearts. More and more pagans are being brought from the darkness to the light; indeed, the darkness is thus passing away, the genuine light is shining (two progressive present tenses).

John is not assuring the readers that what he is writing is true and not empty fiction; he is telling them how this is a new commandment despite its oldness to the readers, new as being true (ἀληθές, real) in Christ and in them, real because of what happened before the Word came to them and they got to hear it. Compared with the long, unbroken night of paganism, this thing that is now so real in connection with Christ and in connection with themselves, this disappearing of the darkness, this shining of the light, the genuine one (ἀληθινόν, not sham), is certainly newness.

John says well: “The thing that is true in him and in you,” and places “in him” first. His deity, his cleansing blood, his expiation, all that is connected with him are true, real. Let the heretics lie and call them untrue! All that is “in you,” connected with you, your cleansing through the Son’s blood, your remission of sins (1:9), your walking as he walked, are true things, are real. Let the heretics lie and call them untrue, unreal! Their supposed gnosis is self-delusion (1:8); the light they claim to have is not genuine, it leaves them in the old darkness. Any newness that they may claim is nothing of the kind. We read these verses in the light of their historical background and not abstractly.

Old—most certainly; it is the same Word, faith, life that Paul and Barnabas first brought; John is writing nothing different. Yet it is wondrously new, as new as when on their first missionary tour Paul and Barnabas made the darkness flee by letting the genuine light shine and shine. This little preamble lifts the hearts of the readers to praise God for this genuine light, to repudiate the heretics who seek to quench this light, to hold to the fellowship with the God who is light and in the light (1:5, 7), to go on walking in the light (1:7), to follow Jesus alone (2:6). Note that “the light” and “the darkness” are repeated from 1:5–7.

1 John 2:9

9 Precious, then, is our mutual fellowship in the light (1:7). John now develops this thought. The one claiming he is in the light and hating his brother is in the darkness still. The one loving his brother remains in the light, and entrapment is not in him.

Here we have one who makes a false claim such as those mentioned in 1:6, 8, 10, and in 2:4. One article governs both participles. John is thinking of a church member who has been deluded by the heretics. He has adopted their light which is not the genuine light (v. 8). His claim to be in the light is false, is evidenced as false by the fact of his hating his brother. This man is in the darkness ἕωςἄρτι, “up till now.” The phrase suggests that John hopes that he will yet return to the genuine light and to the true love of the brethren and to fellowship with them.

1 John 2:10

10 Just what John means is shown by the opposite. The one loving his brother remains in the light and is free from the darkness, and his love is the clear evidence for this fact. The addition reveals John’s meaning: “and entrapment is not in him.”

We should understand σκάνδαλον correctly. It does not mean “occasion of stumbling” (our versions), it has but little connection with stumbling. One may stumble and yet remain on one’s feet, may stumble and actually fall and yet arise again. A skandalon is the crooked trigger stick of a trap to which the bait is affixed and by which the trap is sprung. The verb σκανδαλίζειν means to catch in such a trap. The noun and the verb denote only the fatal, deadly entrapment of the victim. M.-M. 576; R. 174. When this word is used metaphorically it means bringing spiritual death.

The one who loves his brother and remains in the light has nothing in him that will be a trigger stick in a trap to kill any of his brethren spiritually. The other who is not in the light—what does he care for the spiritual life of any brother in the church? He hates, has no use for such brotherhood in the light, will set his traps of lying and deceit to catch and to kill Christians and to throw them into the darkness again.

John introduces terms that echo through this epistle: remain—love, and hate—brother, and what brother means, namely a child born of God. Read on and mark the terms as John expands them. This is much more than quarreling with a brother member of the church, more than the hatred that thus ensues; for by this hate the worst damage is done to the sinner himself and not to the church member sinned against.

1 John 2:11

11 John uses singulars throughout, which generalize and yet make his statements concrete. “The light,” “the darkness” (here σκοτία) are most definite. The former denotes the truth, the Word, the commandment as explained above, the other the opposite. Now the one hating his brother is in the darkness and is walking in the darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness did blind his eyes.

Δέ is not “but” (adversative); it adds a fuller explanation. This is not the hating which is loveless “envy, suspicion, want of sympathy, harshness of judgment, pride” or such other manifestations of the old Adam in Christians. This individual is one of the haters who has turned heretic and hates the brethren that are true to the Word and refuse to give it up at his bidding. He is bent on being a skandalon, on dragging others into the night of spiritual death, into the same night in which he is, in which he walks, which has made his own eyes blind.

He is a missionary of the devil, of “the darkness,” among the true Christians whom he hates because of the light that is in them. Their fellowship with each other he aims to destroy. There are many in our day who hate like this. Here belong Matt. 18:6, 7. These haters love to trap the little ones, to ruin the faith of children, of young people, of immature Christians. They double their damnation.

They are the ones who claim that they have the light (v. 9), the gnosis, the science, and thus catch their pitiful prey. But they are in the darkness (in its fearful power), do nothing but walk in this darkness, do not see where (in the Greek as in common English ποῦ means “where” and not “whither”) they are going (Luther: “to hell”). Although they boast that they alone see, the darkness has blinded their eyes. Jesus utters the same truth in John 12:35.

1 John 2:12

12 Once again, as in v. 7, 8, John has a preamble regarding his writing (v. 12–15), and it is preparatory to something else that would destroy fellowship with God and our spiritual fellowship with each other (1:7), namely the love of the world. So much of heresy is baited with the things that are in the world by offering its adherents liberal enjoyment of those things which the light tells them are freighted with dangers to them.

I am writing to you, little children, because there have been remitted for you the sins for the sake of his name. I am writing to you, fathers, because you have known him (who is) from the beginning. I am writing to you, youths, because you have conquered the wicked one.

Compare “I am writing—I am writing” in v. 7, 9. As in 2:1, 28; 3:7, 18; 4:4; 5:21, “little children” includes all the readers. It is an address that is befitting the aged apostle’s fatherly concern. See verse 1. They will take to heart what their most venerable father is writing to them.

Ὅτι is causal. John states the reason that he is writing to them. The reason is a fact which makes them the “little children” that they are to John: “because there have been remitted for you (sent away from you) the sins for the sake of his name.” The perfect (in form a Doric, Arcadian, Ionic perfect passive, R. 315, from ἀφίημι) means that from the time of their conversion onward to the present moment God has remitted their sins. On this remission see the exposition of 1:9. It is this remission that has placed them in fellowship with God and thus in fellowship with each other (1:7), this remission which the heretics would destroy for them by enticing them with the lusts of the world. This is the point of the “because” clause, this is the reason for John’s writing.

In 1:7 John mentions “the blood of Jesus, God’s Son,” and in 2:1 his “expiation for our sins,” the causa meritoria for this remission; he now names the causa instrumentalis, διὰτὸὄνομααὑτοῦ, “for the sake of his (Christ’s) name.” One should correlate and study the many phrases with ὄνομα, beginning with Matt. 28:19; Acts 2:38. The name is the revelation. By the name alone Christ comes to us with his blood and expiation; by his name alone can we approach him (faith). He and all saving power is in his name. Thus “because of, by reason of, for the sake of (διά with the accusative) his name God ever remits our sins.”

1 John 2:13

13 John divides all of his readers into two classes: old and young, “fathers—youths,” the masculines include the other sex. Some have thought that John speaks of three classes; but τεκνία is John’s regular address for all the readers, and the order “little children—fathers—youths” would be abnormal, it should read “fathers—youths—little children” or the reverse. Nor would the causal clause be fitting if it referred only to little folks. John has the refrain “I am writing to you” and even repeats it with the aorist.

John’s reason for writing to the fathers, the older church members, is a double one; the second one pertains to them in particular. Due to their age and their extended opportunity in life they “have known the One (who is) from the beginning,” the article τόν substantivizes the phrase. This phrase is to be understood in the sense it has in 1:1 and not in the sense it has in 2:7. As this phrase is applied to Jesus, it designates him in his deity. Ever since the venerable members of the churches first heard the gospel they have known Jesus in his deity, have known that this makes him the Savior indeed (4:14). During all these years they have rested their faith in him because he is from the beginning. Now these heretics are denying the deity of Jesus, are claiming that he is the natural son of Joseph, that his blood is not that of “the Son of God” (see 1:7; also 1:1, “the Logos of the Life,” and 1:3, “his Son Jesus Christ”). “You have known” is to be understood in the same sense as it was in v. 3, to know with spiritual affect and effect.

All of the older members will thus know what is at stake far better than the youth. They are able to tell the youth what John means by writing as he does so that they, too, may see the full danger. Thus John states as his special reason for writing to the fathers: I am writing to you “because you have known the One from the beginning.”

John cannot offer the same reason for writing to the youth. Νεανίσκοι are young persons, and the word refers to natural age. We should not spiritualize it and refer the word to immature Christians, whether these are old or young in years; the term for such Christians is νήπιοι, Matt. 11:25; Luke 10:21; Rom. 2:20; 1 Cor. 3:1; Heb. 5:13; etc. Yet John has the noblest kind of reason for writing this letter also to the young people: “because you have conquered the wicked one,” ὁπονηρός, the devil, Matt. 13:19, 38; John 17:15; Eph. 6:16; 1 John 3:12; 5:18, 19, the archenemy. The perfect “you have conquered” is to be understood in the same sense as the preceding perfects: a past victory that endures until the present. Πονηρός = actively, viciously wicked.

This is not a reference only to young men, to their strength, their delight for conflict, etc. John’s letter is not addressed to the male membership alone, it is intended also for the venerable mothers and the young maidens. In the case of the older members John mentions their extended knowledge of the Eternal Son; in the case of the younger their victory over Satan. Their extensive knowledge is full of rich, garnered treasure; the victorious stand against the enemy is the beginning of the true Christian life, the first full consciousness of youthful hearts that they stand in the army of Christ with Satan overthrown, that it is theirs to retain the victory and the triumph under Christ and during all of their life to reap the glorious fruits.

1 John 2:14

14 John repeats: I have written to you, lads, because you have known the Father. I have written to you, fathers, because you have known the One (who is) from the beginning. I have written to you, youths, because you are strong, and the Word of God remains in you, and you have conquered the wicked one.

We use the English perfect to translate John’s three aorists “I did write.” We ask why John writes these aorists after the three presents “I am writing.” Various explanations are offered. The more important believe that John refers to his Gospel with these aorists. It is assumed that the readers have already received John’s Gospel, or that this letter is sent to them together with the Gospel. Another explanation is to the effect that with “I am writing” John refers to the lines he is now penning and with “I did write” to the lines already written in this letter (up to 2:11). Few will accept this latter explanation.

The three ὅτι clauses exclude a reference to John’s Gospel. The three reasons here stated cannot be regarded as the reasons that John wrote his Gospel. In John 20:31 (cf., 19:35) John states the purpose for which he wrote his Gospel. He wrote the Gospel at the solicitation of the Ephesian elders. While it is a minor matter as to whether the Gospel antedates this epistle or not, we believe that the Gospel was written later than the epistle. The relative date of the two documents cannot be determined by the tenses used here.

These are epistolary aorists. The three γράφω, “I am writing,” are plainly rhetorical repetition. When he doubled this repetition John could not use three more γράφω; but the Greek afforded him its epistolary aorist. R. 845 is right, John continues his rhetorical repetition. “One has merely to change his point of view and look back at the writer.” This is a common idiom. When John says, “I am writing,” he thinks of himself as now writing this letter; when he says, “I did write,” he thinks of the time when his readers will peruse what he has written in this letter. The reasons stated by the six ὅτι clauses, as well as the sixfold use of the verb “to write,” refer to this letter and not to two documents.

Παιδία is only a variant for τεκνία and designates all the readers. These neuter diminutives are endearing. Our versions translate both “little children” but do so only because the English has no other good word for the latter. We render “lads” (we might say “laddies”) but do so only in order to show that a word that is different from teknia is used in the Greek. The reason for writing to all his dear ones, as stated in v. 12 and now in a different form, “because you have known the Father,” is really one and the same. Only those know the Father whose sins have been remitted for the sake of Christ’s name. He, the Father of the Son, (see 1:2, 3, 7; 2:1, where “the Father” and “his Son” have been used) has been their Father through Jesus Christ, his Son, ever since he remitted their sins.

John begins to touch the relation of childhood on which he intends to say much more. Our fellowship with God (1:7) is that of Father and children, no less. This we “know” in the way explained in 2:3; see 3:1. What the heretics claim to know about their fellowship with God without a reference to sins, to Christ, God’s Son, and to his cleansing blood, is a lying claim (1:5–10). These men are trying to get their lying claim to take the place of the knowledge in the hearts of the readers. John writes because of the knowledge of his readers, to preserve and to fortify this knowledge.

Yet both τενία and παιδία denote only the relation of the readers to John, the venerable apostle, who loves them as his little ones, and the terms should not be extended beyond this.

As far as the fathers are concerned, John leaves the reason for writing to them unchanged. This is not a paucity of thought on John’s part. The repetition emphasizes the knowledge of the deity of the Son. In predicating knowledge of the fathers in v. 13 and now again in v. 14 John amplifies by predicating knowledge of all his dear readers. “This is life eternal, that they know thee as the only real God, and him whom thou didst commission, Jesus as Christ,” John 17:3.

Si Christum bene scis, satis est, si cetera nescis;

Si Christum nescis, nil est, si cetera discis.

—Bugenhagen.

The reason for writing to the younger members is also the same as that stated in verse 13, but John now inserts two explanatory clauses. “You are strong” with true spiritual strength; with this strength “you have conquered the wicked one” and now stand as victors. This is, however, not strength of your own: “the Word of God remains in you” as the fountain of your strength, the source of all true knowledge and power. “Remain thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; and that from a babe thou hast known the sacred writings which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus,” 2 Tim. 3:14, 15. This strength which is drawn from the Word is to go on conquering all the allurements of the world which the devil will employ.

Fathers and mothers, pastors and teachers must make the young strong in the Word of God. There is no more blessed work. Then they will conquer and remain conquerors, and the devil will not capture them with love for the world.

1 John 2:15

15 Those who find three groups referred to in v. 12–24 apply the following only to the third group, namely to the young people. All that follows, as well as all that is written in this letter, is intended for all. John’s preamble (v. 12–14) prefaces v. 15, etc. In v. 18 παιδία is used with the same force as it is in v. 12. Many of the allurements of the world are especially captivating for youth, but let us not forget that John mentions also those that are especially captivating for older persons.

Do not love the world nor the things in the world! If anyone loves the world, there is not the love of the Father in him. It is useless to urge those who are still of the world not to love the world. We can never hope to pluck figs from thistles or grapes from thorns. Only when people have overcome the wicked one, know the Father, know the Son, have the remission of sins, can we admonish them as John does here.

John uses ἀγαπᾶν, the love that indicates direction of the will and intelligent, purposeful choice, and not φιλεῖν, which is used to denote natural, friendly affection. John might have used the latter. James 4:4 reads: “The friendship (φιλία, friendly affection) for the world is enmity against God; whoever then intends to be a friend (φιλος) of the world establishes himself an enemy of God.” What James inserts by means of the “intends to be” lies in the verb that John uses, namely intention, purpose, choice, will.

Κόσμος (originally: ornament, order) has a variety of meanings in the New Testament: the universe, the earth, the whole human race, the ungodly that are far from God, finally, in the ethical sense, all that is opposed to Christ on earth. John refers to this last, not to the world as God made it but as the wicked one corrupted all that is in it so that it now lies in the wicked one (5:19), is ruled by him as the prince of the world, as a kingdom that is opposed to the Father and the kingdom in which Christ rules with grace. As children of God we have been delivered from the world in this sense, have conquered the wicked one; the world, in the sense of corrupt, ungodly men, hates us, knowing that we do not belong to their number, John 15:18, 19. Luther: “To be in the world, to see the world, to feel the world, is a different thing from loving the world; just as to have and to feel sin is a different thing from loving sin.” John might have used the decisive aorist imperative which is used in so many New Testament admonitions. He uses the present imperative which forbids a course of action. This matches the idea of the verb, for loving is continuous.

“Nor the things of the world” points to the individual deceptive treasures, pleasures, honors of the world, its wealth, its power, its wisdom, etc. We are not forbidden to admire, appreciate, use aright the natural things of this earth such as relatives, friends, fatherland, the beauties and the grandeur of nature, home, occupation, and the thousands of useful, attractive, valuable things which God has put all around us. But whatever in its connection, tendency, and influence is hostile to God, to Christ, and to his kingdom, however alluring or attractive it may otherwise appear, is “a thing of the world,” to which we must be hostile since we belong to God, to Christ, and to his kingdom.

Leo the Great: “Man, who cannot be without love, is either a lover of God or of the world.” He can never be both. Besser: “Where the love of God has entered a heart it intends to be the sole queen.” “Ye adulteresses, do you not know that the friendship for the world is enmity against God?” James 4:4. It is significant that John does not say only in a general way that we are not to love the world but also in particular that we are not to love “the things of the world,” for we love the sinful world by loving some special sinful thing or some things of the world. Every sinful tie must be sundered so that we truly belong to God.

John cites a specific case: “If anyone loves the world, there is not the love of the Father in him.” This is a simple, indisputable fact. This is often taken to mean that if a person loves the world he does not love the Father. This is, of course, true, but it does not go far enough. Already in verse 5 we have met this genitive “the love of God,” and we found that genitive to be subjective because of the context. It is so here, the wording itself indicates as much: “there is not the Father’s love in him.” This says much more than the objective genitive would. In John 14:23 Jesus says: “If anyone loves me, my word will he guard; and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and will make abode with him for ourselves.” John says now that anyone who loves the world prevents the Father from loving him and coming into that man’s heart to make an abode there.

To be sure, this man does not love the Father, which is, however, only the reason that the Father’s love for him can find no place in him. That place is already occupied, the Father’s love is kept out.

1 John 2:16

16 The reason that the Father’s love cannot be found in such a person’s heart is because everything that (is) in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pretension regarding the course of life is not out of the Father but is out of the world; and the world is passing away, also its lust, but the one doing the will of God remains forever. This is the reason the Father’s love with all its gifts cannot enter into this person’s heart; and not the reason this person does not love the Father.

We may translate either “all” or “everything” that is in the world; we prefer the latter because we have “the things in the world” and then specifications of these things, “the lust of the flesh,” etc. This is the sinful desire springing from the flesh or depraved nature which seeks sinful gratification. When John adds “the lust of the eyes” he includes the lust that reaches out beyond what a person can actually get a hold of in his sinning. The lustful eyes rove afar for sinful pleasure. On the lusts of the flesh compare passages such as Phil. 3:19; 1 Cor. 15:32; 6:18, and all the lists of vices.

The world talks about “pleasant, merry companionships,” “innocent amusements,” “having a good time,” etc., which are but euphonious phrases to hide vileness. The lust of the eyes recalls Matt. 5:28. The older exegetes think also of the glitter of gold. When the devil has properly trained the eye, what will it not see to keep the furnace of ungodly emotions and imaginations aglow? The world shouts “artistic,” “beautifully realistic,” freighted with “beautiful moral lessons,” etc., and thus gilds vileness.

John might have added “the lust of the ears” since these also reach out far for vile gratification. Add this yourself; John only suggests.

Ἀλαζονεία = hollow, vainglorious pretense. It is followed by the objective genitive τοῦβίου, the vita quam vivimus as distinct from ζωή, the vita qua vivimus. This pretense does not ask regarding the Father’s will but acts as though it had the sovereign direction of its course of life; see James 4:16, and G. K. 227. The translations “the pride of life” (A. V.), “the vainglory of life” (R.V.) convey a wrong idea; John has in mind that hollow arrogance which presumes that it can decide and direct the course of life without God, determine what it will do, gain, achieve, enjoy.

All that is “in the world” “is not out of the Father but is out of the world,” εἶναιἐκ expresses source. The Father is the source of light, life, blessing, holiness, salvation; the world is the source of sin, lust, ruin, death. How can a Christian give up union and fellowship (1:7) with God and go back to union and fellowship with the world? “What I love, to that my soul clings. What I love is what I live, what I delight in, and this becomes part of my unconscious life, of my meditation, my dreaming. What I love becomes more and more part of my very self. He who loves the world becomes worldly, a man filled with the world.” Dryander.

1 John 2:17

17 If this is the source, what about the result? “And the world is passing away, also its lust.” It is now in the act of passing away. It is its very nature not to last. Its doom is overtaking it. Its glory is fading, its flowers are withering, its promises are failing, its hopes are crumbling. Isa. 14:11. A thousand wrecks lie strewn along its path, and soon it shall be altogether wreck and ruin.

This is also true regarding “the lust for it.” What this implies for the lovers of the world John lets us conclude for ourselves. They will be left naked, wretched, shattered, doomed. All their treasures and pleasures will, like water, have slipped through their fingers, their castles will be in ashes, their crowns a curse. Luke 16:23. Their souls, burnt and blasted by the lusts for the world, will have nothing left but endless remorse and penalty.

Does the siren voice of the world tickle your ears? Hear the word of truth: “The world is passing away!” The bank is breaking, it was never solvent—will you deposit in it? The foundation is tottering, it was never solid but only sham—will you build on it? The mountain is rumbling, quaking, it was never anything but volcanic, ready to blow off its head at any time—will you build your city there?

With a sudden, striking contrast John adds: “but the one doing the will of God remains forever.” What God wills (θέλημα, a term expressing a result) is contained in his Word (1:7, 10; 2:4, 5, 7, 10: the light, the truth, the Word, the commandment). This is his good and gracious will. To do it is to believe and to be saved (John 6:40). That is what it means “to remain for the eon,” i.e., forever.

The Third Circle of Facts The Antichrists, Centering on the Word Remain 2:18–28

1 John 2:18

18 Six times John writes μένειν, “to remain,” in v. 24–28 just as he six times writes “commandment” in v. 3–8. These antichrists did not remain; they “went out from us.” The governing idea is thus still the fellowship, the κοινωνία with God, which is also the koinonia we have with one another (1:6, 7). To remain is salvation, to go out is damnation. The antichrists went out and seek to induce us to go out. John’s elaboration circles on and up in a wider sweep. New pertinent concepts and facts are woven in as he proceeds.

Lads, it is final hour. And even as you heard that Antichrist is coming, also now antichrists many have come to be; whence we know that it is final hour. On παιδία see v. 13; John addresses all of his readers. Ἐσχάτηὤρα is not “the last hour.” The linguistic remark that the article is omitted in the predicate is incorrect, for it is not omitted when the subject and the predicate are identical and interchangeable (R. 768). Here, in fact, “last hour” is the subject and can be called the predicate only formally when ἐστί is considered impersonal. So also the remark is not applicable that well-known concepts and concepts of which only one specimen exists may appear without the article. “Last hour” appears only here in this verse and is not used otherwise.

The term is plainly qualitative. Moreover, the Greek word “hour” is here used in the wider sense as it is in John 4:21 where the whole New Testament period is referred to, likewise in John 5:25. Compare also John 16:2, 25, 26; in the latter verses hour and day have the same meaning. We may add Matt. 24:36, “that day and hour,” i.e., that date (narrow) and general time (wide). In some of these passages “hour” is quite properly rendered “time” by our versions. So also B.-P. 1427 has “letzte Zeit” in dieser Weltperiode as a translation of our passage. The English does not seek to conserve the qualitative sense as the Greek does and does not say “it is last hour,” “final hour,” but inserts the article, which then loses the Greek qualitative idea.

“Final hour” does not include the whole New Testament era from the first coming of Christ to the second. Although this would not be far wrong, we should note that John states how we may know that what is final hour is setting in, namely by the appearing of antichrists. Their increase in number is the sign. So we say that “final hour” extends from the appearing of such antichrists until the Parousia; note the latter in verse 28. Nor need one go to the Old Testament for the meaning of “last hour.” To be sure, the Old and the New Testaments agree. But John had both the added revelation of Jesus and the further revelation which Jesus promised the apostles (John 16:13).

The “last hour” should not be referred to the short period that immediately precedes the Parousia, and on the basis of this the charge be raised that John (Paul, too) was mistaken. Then these apostles were false prophets! None of the apostles knew the day or the hour of the Parousia (Matt. 24:36) or ever pretended to know this. It might, like a thief, arrive at any time. John is not determining the duration of the “final hour,” he is pointing his readers to the sign which indicates its beginning, the appearance of many antichrists: “whence we know (γινώσκω, with concern to ourselves) that it is (indeed) final hour.” John saw the first group of antichrists. He distinguishes these from “Antichrist,” of whom he does not say that he has already come to be but only that “he is coming.” We of the present day see how the antichrists have multiplied, how “Antichrist” himself is here (2 Thess. 2), and thus how imminent is the Parousia. Yet even we do not know the date of the Parousia.

“Even as you did hear that Antichrist is coming” refers to the apostolic prophecies about “Antichrist,” which especially Paul has left us in 2 Thess. 2. John is writing to many churches that were founded by Paul and by his assistants; their number had greatly increased by this time. In 1 Pet. 1:1 we catch a glimpse of their increase from the beginning to the year 64; by the time John writes this letter many more churches had been added to this group.

From the beginning Paul had told his churches about “Antichrist.” In 2 Thess. 2:5 he says that he did so when he first preached in Thessalonica. Paul was not the sole possessor of this revelation; all the apostles had it. All the churches were informed “that Antichrist is coming.” John says that “even as” his readers had heard that prophecy, one that was not yet fulfilled at the time when John writes this letter, they see the fact that “also now antichrists many have come to be” (perfect tense: and are now here). The implication is that these many antichrists are forerunners of the coming Antichrist. “Even as—also now” denotes a correspondence. “Antichrist” and “antichrists many” does the same, it only elevates the coming one above those that are already here.

John alone has this term: here, in v. 22, and in 2 John 7. Paul furnishes the full description of the coming Antichrist (2 Thess. 2), but he does not use this term. Those are certainly right who find John’s coming Antichrist in Paul’s prophecy. In fact, Paul’s ὁἀντικείμενος (2 Thess. 2:4), “the one opposing himself,” and John’s ἀντίχριστος are practically synonymous. The student will find all that we have to say on “the great Antichrist” who is aptly so termed in distinction from the others, “the little antichrists,” in our interpretation of 2 Thess. 2. The great Antichrist is the papacy.

John uses both “Antichrist” and “many antichrists” qualitatively, without the article. Neither term is individual so that “Antichrist” is a single man, “antichrists” a number of single men. Paul’s description of the former is that of a single opposition that is headed by a succession, all opposing in the same way and continuing to the Parousia itself. On the other hand, the “many antichrists” are varied oppositions, each being started by one man and his following, perhaps having a succession of leaders and continuing for a longer or a shorter period as the case may be, each opposition and its leadership running its course. Thus Cerinthus started a Gnostic opposition. This developed, and other Gnostic leaders arose. This antichristian opposition ran its course and eventually died out.

The way in which John writes “antichrists many” appears to mean that other leaders of his type besides Cerinthus had already come to be. In the following ages new kinds of antichristian leaders arose. Church history describes them and the extent and the duration of the various movements. We are acquainted with those of recent times: Dowie, Russell, Mrs. Eddy, modernism, etc. As they have multiplied, many of the old antichristian falsehoods have been taken up anew, have been dressed up in new verbiage and have paraded as new discoveries. Thus Cerinthus made Jesus the son of Joseph, which is only the modernists’ rejection of the Virgin birth. He denied that the blood of Jesus is the blood of the Son of God with power to cleanse from sin (1:7; 2:2), which the modernists likewise deny.

Ἀντί in ἀντίχριστος denotes opposition: Widerchrist, opponent of Christ; not substitution, not a man who claims to be Christ, to be in the place of Jesus Christ. C.-K. 1134; Trench, Synonyms; others. There have been both kinds, and the latter (“false Christs,” Matt. 24:24) are certainly also opponents of Christ. John’s “Antichrist” and “antichrists” convey only opposition. We have John’s own statement to this effect in v. 22, 23; compare 2 John 7.

1 John 2:19

19 From us they went out; yea, they were not of us. For if they were of us they would have remained with us; but that they may be (definitely) made manifest because not are these all of us. One mark of the antichrists is the fact that they originate in the church. In 2 Thess. 2:4 Paul makes this clear regarding the great Antichrist who sits in the very temple of God. However hostile to Christ and to Christianity paganism, Judaism, Mohammedanism, Masonry, and political powers and movements may be, none of these is an “antichrist.” “From us they went out” these many antichrists of John’s time. They broke the koinonia, the fellowship with us (1:7). The conservation of this spiritual fellowship is John’s basic concern as we have already indicated.

“Went out from us” means inward and also outward separation. Hence John adds: “yea, they were not of us,” ἐξἡμῶν is now to be understood in the deeper sense: in their hearts they were not of us, were not really derived from us. We regard ἀλλά as confirmatory and climacteric and not as adversative (R. 1185, etc.). It is, indeed, no wonder that they left our churches and set up opposition camps; they did not inwardly belong to us. They were either false from the start or became so and then left.

“For” explains: “if they were (inwardly) of us they would have remained (outwardly) with us,” μεθʼ ἡμῶν, “in our company.” John begins to use the verb “remain” which he repeats six times in v. 24–28; it is the verb of fellowship (1:7). He has a condition of unreality, the apodosis has the past perfect and ἄν (the only New Testament instance), whereas the aorist is usually employed (R. 906; 1015). Is the protasis a present or is it, too, a past unreality? Is ἧσαν, the imperfect, doing duty for itself (present unreality), or is it doing duty for the unusual aorist (past unreality)? B.-D. 360, 3. Either is correct. “If they were still of us they would have remained with us.” Such a mixed condition is often written.

We think that this is such a mixed condition. Others prefer: “If they had been of us (as John has said that they were not) they would have,” etc.

“But that they might be manifest” is elliptical. Some would supply nothing, but it is best to supply: “but they went out from us in order that they might (definitely, aorist) be made manifest as not being of us.” We regard ὅτι as equal to “because” (not “that”). We keep the Greek word order: “because not are these all of us,” i.e., all who are in our churches are not inwardly of us, some are false. This has become manifest in regard to the anti-christians: we see that they have actually left us. Others think that the sense is that all the antichristians are not of us (R.V.), which has, however, already been said. The A.

V. makes the impression that “not all” but that some of the antichristians were and are not of us. True, the Greek often places οὑ with the verb whereas we place the negative with the subject; but when “all” is used in the sentence, one must watch the sense and see whether οὑ is to be construed with “all”: “not all” (only some), or with the verb: “are not” (all of them).

1 John 2:20

20 Beside what John says about antichrists he places what he says about his readers as true Christians (hence καί), yet he does not do this for the sake of a strong contrast but as a preamble to what he further says about antichrists. John’s readers are fully able to know what antichristianity is, John does not need to teach them that at this late date.

And you on your part have anointment from the Holy One, and you all know. I did not write to you because you do not know the truth but because you know it, and because every lie is not of the truth.

Χρίσμα, a term expressing result, is not the act of anointing but the anointment received by such an act; in v. 27 we have: “you received anointment from the Holy One.” To refer it to the oil itself is incongruous in these two passages. Since it is without the article, “anointment” is qualitative.

“You have it from the Holy One” indicates that the anointment referred to is something that is of a permanent nature. The Holy One = Christ (John 6:69; Acts 3:14; 4:27; etc.). The readers received anointment in baptism: Χριστός, the Anointed, bestowed as a gift from himself the χρίσμα, anointment, the Holy Spirit, and thereby made them χριστοί, anointed ones, χριστιανοί, Christians, who are now opposed by ἀντίχριστοι, anti-christians. John calls the bestowal of the Spirit a χρίσμα because he speaks of the antichristians. These derivatives come from χρίω, the sacred act of anointing, and not from ἀλείφω, “to oil” in ordinary ways. Hence we have the term for “Christ”: “the Holy One.” There is no reference to the ecclesiastical ceremony of anointing with oil at baptism; this was a later custom that was based on John’s passages.

The thought involved is the fact that by the gift of the Spirit in baptism the Holy One united these anointed ones with himself (fellowship in 1:6, 7); yet this is only involved as is separation from all antichristians. The next clause: “and you all know,” states what Christ’s anointing bestows on true Christians, namely the enlightenment of knowledge. John uses οἶδα, “to know” with the mind and intellect. This is correct, for in v. 21–23 the object of this knowing is the mark of an antichrist, and how to recognize one. Mere recognition is expressed by this verb. Some texts have πάντα: “you know all things” (our versions).

Interpreters say that “all things” is limited by “the truth.” Even so, this says too much and says it unnecessarily. A Christian does not need to know everything in order to know who is an antichristian liar. Instruction in the catechism is enough. We prefer the well-attested reading πάντες: “you all know,” i.e., all of you have knowledge enough for what I, John, am now writing about.

1 John 2:21

21 So John says: “I did not write to you because you do not know the truth,” i.e., do not know enough of it to know who is an antichrist, “but because you know it, and because every lie is not of the truth” and thus is easily known as a lie by all who know the truth. The aorist “I did write” is epistolary like those used in v. 13, 14 and refers to this entire letter, the whole of which is directed against “antichrists.” When the readers get this letter they are not to read it as though John wrote in order to teach them the ABC of Christianity; he wrote it, they are to tell themselves, in order to have them use all the knowledge of the truth that they already have in order to detect as a lie all that is not of the truth but is of the devil. John 8:44.

1 John 2:22

22 John now puts the question: Who is the liar if not the one denying that Jesus is not the Christ? And he then adds emphatically: This one is the antichrist, the one denying the Father and the Son! Everyone denying the Son neither has the Father; the one confessing the Son also has the Father.

Both of our versions are correct: “Who is a liar?” (the English idiom); “Who is the liar?” (Greek) because the Greek article is generic. So again: “He is antichrist”—“He is the antichrist.” Any Christian who is in possession of the Spirit and thus of the truth can easily tell that he is certainly a flagrant liar who denies that Jesus is the Christ; yea, this man is one of the antichrists whether he is a leader or a follower since by his denying Jesus to be the Christ he denies the Father as well as the Son.

The Jews declared that Jesus was not the Christ, not the Son of God, and Jesus proved to them that they neither knew the Father nor had him as their Father, John 8:42, etc., but were of the devil, the liar from the beginning, the father of lies. While John denounces the early Gnostics, Cerinthus and his following, his words certainly recall the words Jesus addressed to the Jews although the latter were not antichrists in the sense of having developed in the Christian Church.

Cerinthus dreamed of a heavenly Eon Χριστός, a fictional being whom he substituted for the Son who is of one essence with the Father; this Eon Christ was not Jesus who was merely Joseph’s natural son. This Eon Christos descended upon Jesus at the time of his baptism but left Jesus before his passion so that only Joseph’s physical son Jesus died on the cross. Thus this Gnosticism abolished the Son and the efficacy of the Son’s blood (1:7). Without the Son there is no Father of the Son (compare 1:2, 3, “with the Father”—“the Father and his Son Jesus Christ”; 1:7, “Jesus, his Son”). What Cerinthus and all of his ilk had left has aptly been called an idol. Their great claim of fellowship with God was a lie (1:6); it was fellowship with the idol of their imagination. The modern types of such liars are Unitarians, modernists, anti-Trinitarian sects.

“Liar” harks back to 1:6, 10; compare 4:20. The οὑ in “Jesus is not the Christ” is not redundant (R. 1164); Demosthenes has it (B.-D. 429). Its use is due to the fact that the clause is conceived as indirect discourse. These liars said in so many words: “Jesus is not the Christ.” John quotes them.

1 John 2:23

23 John’s deduction is true: “Everyone denying the Son neither has the Father,” i.e., fellowship with the Father. Not only is John 14:6b true, but those who have no Son of God eo ipso also have no Father however much they may use the term “Father” (in the Unitarian sense = Creator). For the third time John uses ὁἀρνούμενος, “the one denying,” the denier.

Over against the denier he places the true confessor the more sharply because he does not use a δέ: “The one confessing the Son also has the Father” i.e., has fellowship with the Father through the Son’s blood (1:7) and expiation (2:2). To confess is the opposite of to deny. Both are open, public statements. The confession voices faith and states what is in the heart; the denial voices unbelief, hostility, and reveals that these are in the heart. There is no avenue to the Father for any sinner save through the Son and through his expiating blood.

1 John 2:24

24 Verses 22 and 23 present the facts which the readers know and which they need not be taught. John states them in a brief, clean-cut way. These facts call for the admonition You, what you heard from the beginning—let it continue to remain in you!

We regard ὑμεῖς as a vocative: “You!” We disregard R. 437. B.-D. 466, 1 is better regarding both this “you” and the one used in v. 27; they find a parallelismus membrorum in both sentences:

“You, what you heard from the beginning,

Let it continue to remain in you.”

“And you, the anointment you received from him.

It continues to remain in you.”

The verb is not enough; “in you” must be added so that ὑμεῖς is not a prolepsis of the subject. We accept this but add that “you” is an address, a vocative.

The verb “remain” is six times dinned into the hearts of the readers. This is not monotony; “to remain” is the essential thing. To receive in the beginning and not let what we received remain in us is fatal. John learned this verb from Jesus who used it six times in John 15:3, 4, 6, 7. John uses it again, note 2:6, 14, 17, 19; 3:9. “In you” and “not in you” imply remaining in you and not remaining in you—see the phrases as far back as 1:8, 10; and then in 2:4, 5, 8, 15, 16; etc. “To be in” is the correlate of “to remain in” and is likewise used by John again and again. These recurring expressions should be well noted in order to understand John’s full meaning.

“What you heard from the beginning” = the “old commandment which you had from the beginning” (v. 7); the phrase “from the beginning” is identical. “You heard” states how they received what they are to let remain in them. This is the light, the truth, the Word, the commandment already named so often. The apostles report it to you, also write it to you (1:3, 4); it comes by way of teaching as John will add (v. 27). The great thing is: “Let it ever remain in you!”

If there remains (effectively, definitely, aorist) in you what from the beginning you heard, you, too, in the Son and in the Father will continue to remain (durative future tense). The light, truth, Word, commandment, teaching heard by the readers are the divine means for uniting them with the Father and the Son, and the continuance of this union depends on the fact that what they have heard ever continues to remain in them. In 1:3 John began by saying that the great purpose of the whole apostolic preaching is that you may have fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ; not an empty claim of fellowship like that of the heretics (1:5, etc.) but actual fellowship with our sins confessed, remitted, cleansed away by the Son’s blood. See how from the very first paragraph onward John widens the circle upward step by step on this pivot of fellowship until he arrives where he now is: our continuing to remain in the Son and in the Father, in true union and communion with them. In the following John circles on and up still higher, and all of this is presented in an unbroken line.

True religion is this and this alone that we poor sinners are again joined to God. False religion is to imagine that we are joined to God (1:6). John has unfolded the facts that are involved in the true union and has shown how we may know that we are, indeed, in this union; in addition to these facts John has shown the lies by which men deceive themselves (1:8) in the delusion that without the Son’s blood, without the truth and Word, by denying and ignoring their sins they are in union with God. With crystal clarity we are made to see all. Here we have the true revelation in sentence after sentence that is inspired of God; this is eternally true. This is religion! All that denies it is false religion.

Note that John repeats “what from the beginning you heard,” and that the phrase is now placed emphatically forward. All that lying men have told you since that time, are telling you now, by drawing you away from what you heard aims to separate you from the Father and the Son in the delusion that, like these liars, you can be in union with God without a Son of God, etc.

1 John 2:25

25 And this is the promise which he himself promised to us, the life, the eternal one. “The promise”=“what you heard from the beginning.” Christ himself promised this to us. Its sum and substance is “the life, the eternal one”; the adjective is added with a second article and is like an apposition and has an emphasis (R. 776). Hear how this promise is uttered again and again by Jesus. Begin with John 3:15, 16; 5:24; 8:51—but it fills the entire Gospel. The mention of “life” reverts to “Life” and “the Life, the Eternal One” (Christ), occurring in 1:2; note also 5:11. The apostles were (and still are) Christ’s intermediaries for conveying his promise.

To be in union with God and with his Son is to have “the life, the eternal one.” Without the Son there is no life. John 17:3. It is true religion to have this life; it is false religion to imagine that one has it.

1 John 2:26

26 These things I wrote to you in regard to those trying to deceive you. “I wrote,” epistolary aorist = you will see that I wrote when you get and read this letter. “These things” are all those that were especially written against the antichristian deceivers who are now busy among you. By designating them with a present participle John describes them in their activity; but this participle is also conative: “those trying to deceive you,” “them that would lead you astray” (A. V.). John is writing his letter in order to aid the readers in meeting these attempts of deceivers who are even deceiving their own selves (1:8).

1 John 2:27

27 And you, the anointment which you received from him, it remains in you; and you have no need for anyone to be teaching you. On the contrary, as his anointment continues to teach you concerning everything, it (what it teaches) is also true and is not a lie, and just as it did teach you, continue to remain in him!

“And you!” is a vocative (see v. 24). “The anointment you have from the Holy One” (Christ), mentioned in v. 20, is now called “the anointment which you received from him.” This, John says, “remains in you.” By “the anointment” John refers to the Holy Spirit as he is bestowed upon us (see v. 20) by sacrament and by Word. Fanatics imagine that they can get possession of the Spirit in an immediate way without the Word (note that the Word is the power in the sacrament).

The anointment thus remains in you. It was not a transient experience. John is thinking of the Spirit’s permanent indwelling by means of his enlightening Word, which appears from his thrice repeated “to teach.” With the permanent possession which you have “you have no need for anyone to be teaching you” (note the durative present tense). You are not a group of ignoramuses that need to be taught over and over again by apostles and by Christian teachers. This is not intended as praise for John’s readers; it is the statement of a simple fact which is to be noted as such. When people were received into the church in John’s time they were evidently first well taught, they received a real anointment with the Spirit by the Word and by baptism.

Today many preachers and many churches receive people without this anointment. No wonder the results are according.

“On the contrary (ἀλλά), as his anointment continues to teach you concerning everything, it is true and is not a lie,” i.e., what it teaches you. John uses the singular ἀληθές to match the other predicate “not a lie.” Note that neither of these predicates could fit “his anointment.” If the first were intended for “his anointment” it should be ἀληθινόν, “genuine” and not sham (see v. 8 for the distinction). Least of all can it be said that “the anointment is not a lie.” Both predicates fit what is taught by the anointment. Yet note that this continues to teach (again the durative present tense). John’s readers received continuous teaching after they had been brought into the church. This ought to be the case everywhere.

All of this teaching is sound, “true” (John has repeatedly called it “the truth”), “not a lie” like that of the liars (1:6; 2:22) and deceivers in whom there is not the truth (1:8). This is again the fact, and it is again to be noted as such.

Now the admonition: “and just as it (i.e., this anointment) taught you (by this past teaching down to the present), continue to remain in him!” In v. 24 we have the condition on which the readers “shall remain (μενεῖτε) in the Father and the Son,” namely the effective remaining in them of what from the beginning they heard; now we have the admonition: “continue to remain in him” (Christ, the Son) just as his anointment did, in fact, teach you.

The construction and the meaning are simple. Both become involved and troublesome when they are translated as they are in our versions. John does not range subordinate clauses together in the way in which our versions seem to think that he does. Besides other points, ὡς cannot be continued by καὶκαθώς; the latter stands by itself: “and just as.”

1 John 2:28

28 John repeats the imperative he has used in v. 27 (this form cannot well be the indicative): And now, little children, continue to remain in him in order that, if he is made manifest, we may have boldness and may not be shamed away from him at his Parousia. Continue to remain in living spiritual connection with him so that at his wondrous Parousia you may joyfully meet him and may not be driven away from him forever in shame. “Little children” is used as it was in verse 1, and “remain” is the important feature: now fellowship and then eternal glorious fellowship.

Ἐάν at times approaches ὅταν in force (B.-P. 327) so that the A. V. is not wrong when it translates “when” instead of “if he is made manifest.” This manifestation is the glorious one that shall occur at the time of the Parousia (on Parousia see 2 Pet. 1:16). When it occurs (aorist, as it shall with suddenness), then to have (effective aorist) boldness to face him is the essential thing for us. Here and in Hebrews παρρησία = the undismayed confidence of faith, “the feeling of freedom and joyfulness over against another person, especially of a judge” (C.-K. 451); compare 4:17. The opposite is “to be shamed away from him.” This verb is a passive, and ἀπʼ αὑτοῦ fits it well; so we do not translate “be ashamed before him.” Those who only claim fellowship with God, who see in Jesus only a man, a natural son of Joseph, who deny his deity, the blood of Jesus, God’s Son (1:7)—add all the other negations that John has introduced—will be covered with shame and will shrink “away from him” when he appears all-glorious, the final Judge, with a verdict that damns them. Note Dan. 12:2; Mark 8:38. Remain in Christ and escape such a fate.

The Fourth Circle of Facts, Centering on Being Born of God as His Children 2:29–3:24

The New Birth and Our Relation to God 2:29–3:10a

1 John 2:29

29 The symphony glides into a new variation of the great basic theme. Many of the notes that have been ringing in the chords continue on in richer harmony. All that has been written about fellowship with God and with Christ (1:3–6) with all that centers in this union, as it is unfolded down to v. 28, our remaining, remaining, remaining with boldness at the Parousia, means that we are children of God, born of him, and so all that has been said before unfolds still farther in a new harmony and a still greater richness. This is John’s wonderful way of writing.

If you know that he is righteous you realize that also everyone doing the righteousness has been born from him.

John has called both God (1:9) and Jesus Christ (2:1) righteous. It is debated as to which of the two he refers to here. Inasmuch as to be born “from him” certainly means “from God” (3:1, 9; 4:7; 5:18), and inasmuch as the Scriptures never say that we are born from Christ, we refer both clauses to God although John has spoken about Christ in the preceding verses. When Christ is called “Righteous One” in 2:1, this refers to him in his soteriological work, and that passage should not be introduced here. John refers to 1:5, 6: God is light, we walk in the light even as he is in the light. which is evidence that we have fellowship with him. For “light” and “the light” John now substitutes “righteous” and “the righteousness”; for “walking in the light” he uses “doing the righteousness”; for “fellowship” he writes “have been born from him.” All the other thoughts that are suggested by 1:5, etc., reappear in the advanced connection save that they are stated so as to match this connection: the taking away of our sins, our purifying ourselves, also our loving our brethren (compare 2:9–11).

“If you know” is the verb οἶδα which means to direct the mind to its object, here to the great fact that God is righteous. In the apodosis John writes γινώσκω: “you realize that everyone … has been born from him”; this verb means that the mind receives an affect and an effect from the object (C.-K. 388). One knows and admits that God is righteous; one knows and is profoundly affected by the deduction that everyone doing the righteousness has been born from God. There is no exception to this. Hence, if I do not the righteousness, it is evident that I am not born from God; but if I do it, there is evidence that I am so born.

There is no reason for making γινώσκετε an imperative. John’s readers know and realize what he says; he does not need to admonish them to do the latter any more than to do the former. The fact that v. 28 has an imperative and 3:1 an exclamatory imperative is not a reason for the use of an imperative in the intervening conditional sentence. John impresses two facts, the second being dependent on the first, on the minds of his readers (εἰδῆτε) in order to show them all that lies in these facts as they affect themselves (γινώσκετε).

God is righteous; righteousness is one of his energetic attributes. He is righteous in all his ways: in his laws, his promises, his verdicts, or a single act of his. In their blindness men may call him unjust, but they will be compelled to see and will then have to say that he did justly, righteously. John could say that everyone that is born from him, every child of his, is also righteous; but he reverses this and says much more. Our being righteous proves that we are born from him, and our doing the righteousness is the perceptible evidence of our birth. By it we can judge in regard to the mysterious and the intangible fact that a spiritual birth has occurred in us. By this tangible, visible evidence we can to a safe degree judge also our fellow Christians and the non-Christians. “Everyone doing the righteousness has been born from God,” and no one else.

Many acquit themselves and pronounce themselves “righteous.” Jesus told the Pharisees: “You are the ones declaring yourselves righteous (acquitting yourselves) before men” (Luke 16:15) and imagine that your claim makes you what you claim. Among the 95 Theses which he drew up for the anniversary of the Reformation, Claus Harms has a thesis that says: people used to pay for the forgiveness of their sins, but they have now advanced—every sinner just forgives his own sins. Doing the righteousness necessarily includes having the righteousness, which is the same as being righteous. God is righteous; therefore all that he does is righteous. Only a fool expects to do righteousness (to have what he does pronounced righteous) while he is not righteous at all. Doing the righteousness is the same as “doing the truth,” 1:6.

Both are definite: “the truth” = what God’s Word says; “the righteousness” = what God and his Word pronounce righteous. The words δίκαιος and δικαιοσύνη are always forensic.

This “doing,” ever doing, is not what the world calls “living a moral life.” A man can live such a life without having been born anew. Natural morality is not “the righteousness” which is declared such by God. John has already written 1:9 and 2:1–3. “Everyone doing” means everyone whose sins God has remitted and cleansed away, everyone who through the Advocate, Jesus Christ the Righteous One, has constant remission of sins, who thus heeds the admonition not to sin (2:1), who keeps God’s commandments, i.e., remains true to God’s Word.

This is the man who has the plain, visible evidence that he “has been born from God,” (perfect tense: is in that condition, continues in it). He is a new creature. He has been regenerated (John 3:3, 5). He has been made a good tree, his good fruit being the decisive evidence for this fact.

Socinus and the rationalists imagine that man gives himself the new birth when he strives Dei similem esse, tries to do good. Acts 10:35 is understood to mean that even every earnest pagan, Jew, Mohammedan, rationalist, though he be without Christ and the Son’s blood (1:7), is accepted by God as his child. Others imagine that by doing what is right we attain the new birth, i.e., that the fruit produces the tree. Still others in a pantheistic way see in the new birth a process by which a person is absorbed into God or absorbs God in himself.

John is elucidating the κοινωνία or fellowship with God (1:3–7). This is produced by the new birth when a new, spiritual life is kindled in us through Christ, the Life, the Eternal One (1:2). This makes us the children of God who is righteous, and the evidence of our childhood is our doing the righteousness which his judgment ever approves.

M.-M. The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, Illustrated from the Papyri and other Nonliterary Sources, by James Hope Moulton and George Milligan.

C.-K. Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von Dr. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.

R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, fourth edition.

B.-D. Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neu-gearbeitete Auflage besorgt von Albert Debrunner.

G. K Theologisches Woerterbuch zum Neuen Testament, herausgegeben von Gerhard Kittel.

B.-P. Griechisch-Deutsches Woerterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments, etc., von D. Walter Bauer, zweite, etc., Auflage zu Erwin Preuschens Vollstaendigem Griechisch-Deutschem Handwoerterbuch, etc.