The possibility of not sinning
2
📚My little children 📖, I write these things to you so that you will not sin 📖. But if anyone sins, we have an advocate 📖 with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous 📖,The one and only one basis for forgiveness
2 📚and he is the propitiation 📖 for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world 📖.
Obedience to God’s commands, knowing that we know Him
3 📚And by this we know that we know 📖 him: If we keep his commandments 📖. 4 📚He who says, “I know him, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar 📖, and the truth is not in him 📖. 5 📚But whoever keeps his word, in him indeed the love 📖 of God is perfected. By this we know that we are in him.
6 📚He who says he remains in him ought to walk just as he walked 📖.
Brotherly love
7 📚Brethren, I am not writing any new command to you, but an old command, which you have had from the beginning. The old command is the word which you have heard 📖 from the beginning.
8 📚Again, I am writing a new 📖 command to you, a thing that is true in him and in you, because the darkness is past, and the true light is now shining 📖. 9 📚He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother 📖, is in darkness even until now. 10 📚He who loves his brother remains in the light, and there is no cause of stumbling in him. 11 📚But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going 📖, because that darkness has blinded 📖 his eyes.
2:9-11 Love is the test of whether we are in light or in darkness. People may think or say all sorts of things about being in the light and being enlightened, and they can deceive themselves and others. But we can know what they are by their behavior. Love and light go together; hate and darkness go together.⚜
Why John wrote
12 📚I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven 📖 you for his name’s sake 📖.
13 📚I am writing to you, fathers, because you have known 📖 him who is from the beginning 📖. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome 📖 the wicked one. I am writing to you, little children, because you have known the Father 📖.
14 📚I have written to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong 📖, and the word of God remains in you 📖, and you have overcome the wicked one.
The believer and this world
15 📚Do not love the world, or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world 📖, the love of the Father is not in him 📖.
2:15 John now appeals to all and gives a command to all.⚜
16 📚For all 📖 that is in the world – the desire of the flesh 📖 and the desire of the eyes and the pride of life – is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17 📚And the world passes away 📖, and its desires also; but whoever does the will of God 📖 continues on forever.
Warning about antichrists
18 📚Little children, it is the last hour, and just as you have heard that antichrist will come, even now there are many 📖 antichrists 📖. By this we know that it is the last hour 📖. 19 📚They went out from us 📖, but none of them were of us 📖. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. But they went out, so that it might be made evident that all of them were not of us.
20 📚But you have an anointing 📖 from the Holy One 📖, and you know all things 📖. 21 📚I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth.
2:21 Verse 13 – anything that deviates from the truth God has revealed in the Bible is false and dangerous.⚜
22 📚Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He who denies the Father and the Son is antichrist.
2:22 The man who says Jesus is not the anointed Messiah, the Son of God, is a liar, and the worst of all possible liars. Some people do this. They deny that Jesus combines in Himself both God’s nature and man’s nature, that Jesus is the eternal Son of God become man. Such people by denying the Son are denying God the Father who sent Him. Compare John 5:23. See references to Christ’s deity at Phil 2:6; and Luke 2:11.⚜
23 📚Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father, but he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
2:23 Whatever people may think, no one has God who does not believe and receive the Son of God Jesus Christ. It is absurd to think that we can have God and reject His Son. But those who believe in Jesus have God the Father as their Father.⚜
24 📚Therefore let that remain in you which you have heard from the beginning. If 📖 what you have heard 📖 from the beginning remains 📖 in you, you also will continue in the Son and in the Father.
25 📚And this is the promise that he has promised us, eternal life 📖.
26 📚I have written these things to you concerning those who would lead you astray 📖. 27 📚But the anointing which you have received from him remains 📖 in you, and you do not need any man to teach you 📖; but as that same anointing teaches you 📖 concerning all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it has taught you, you will remain in him.
God’s children
28 📚And now, little children, remain in him 📖 so that when he appears 📖, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed 📖 before him at his coming.
They do what is right
29 📚If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness 📖 is born of him 📖.