Warning against the AntiChrists

Enrique Tagle Aguiar

Letters of John • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

1 John 2:18–27

Admonish

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1 John 2:18-27

AntiChrists vs ProChrists

ANTICHRIST (ἀντίχριστος, antichristos). A figure empowered by Satan who functions as an enemy of Jesus Christ and the Church. In the context of apocalyptic literature, this figure performs false miracles, deceives many in order to discourage people from worshiping the true God, and persecutes God’s people.

Introduction

The term “antichrist” could mean either “against Christ” or “in place of Christ.” While the actual term “antichrist,” which originates in the New Testament, appears infrequently in Scripture, the concept of the antichrist appears numerous times in the New Testament. Because the broader concept appears more often than the specific term, multiple perspectives have been presented on “antichrist,” leading to the understanding that the better phrase used to discuss the issue may be “eschatological antagonist.”

Survey of New Testament Usage

Johannine Letters

The term “antichrist” (ἀντίχριστος, antichristos) appears in Scripture four times, solely in the Johannine corpus (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 1:7). First and Second John combat heresies and discuss the preservation of true doctrine. The Letters indicate a heresy was spreading throughout the community which denied “Jesus is the Christ” (1 John 2:22) and His “coming in the flesh” (2 John 1:7).

The first time John uses the term, he reminds his readers that they have heard about an antichrist coming (1 John 2:18). This reveals that teaching concerning this figure precedes John’s use of the term. He uses the term in his letters to describe those who oppose these central doctrines concerning the person of Jesus Christ. For John, those who had receive the truth yet teach false doctrine concerning Jesus are antichrists.

Daniel I. Morrison, “Antichrist,” in The Lexham Bible Dictionary, ed. John D. Barry et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).

Daniel 7:24–27 ESV

As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise, and another shall arise after them; he shall be different from the former ones, and shall put down three kings. He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and shall think to change the times and the law; and they shall be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time. But the court shall sit in judgment, and his dominion shall be taken away, to be consumed and destroyed to the end. And the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; his kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.’

Daniel 8:23–25 ESV

And at the latter end of their kingdom, when the transgressors have reached their limit, a king of bold face, one who understands riddles, shall arise. His power shall be great—but not by his own power; and he shall cause fearful destruction and shall succeed in what he does, and destroy mighty men and the people who are the saints. By his cunning he shall make deceit prosper under his hand, and in his own mind he shall become great. Without warning he shall destroy many. And he shall even rise up against the Prince of princes, and he shall be broken—but by no human hand.

Matthew 24:24 ESV

For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

A Note on Antichrist

The general concept of a powerful end-time figure opposed to God is found in Jewish apocalyptic writings, and it is probably in these writings that the background to the author’s antichrist concept is to be found. Within the NT four main passages reflect this concept, even though only 1 and 2 John use the actual term ‘antichrist’. The passages are 2 Thess 2:1–12; Matthew 24/Mark 13; 1 and 2 John, and Revelation 12–13. The information can be most easily presented in tabular form:

A number of things significant to our understanding of 1 John 2:18–27 can be seen in the passages above. First, it is clear that the coming of a powerful ‘antichrist’ figure was part of early Christian teaching. Three traditions imply that this information was given ‘at the beginning’. Second, in early Christian teaching a distinction was made between the great antichrist figure who will appear near the very end and the lesser antichrist figures whose influence is already being felt. Third, it was widely recognised that the function of both the antichrist figure and those who preceded him was to deceive people. Fourth, in all sources except 1 and 2 John, the antichrist figures attack the church from without. Sometimes the portrayal of these figures has clear political overtones (Matthew/Mark, Revelation). Fifth, only in 1 John are antichrist figures identified as erstwhile members of a Christian community. The evidence for this fifth point is found in 2:19.

One of the questions that arises in respect to the antichrists is whether we are to regard them as purely human phenomena, or whether we are to see behind them some spiritual force. While the passages from Matthew/Mark, 2 Thessalonians, and 1 John might be interpreted in terms of human adversaries alone, Revelation 12–14 certainly cannot. There the ‘beast’ stands over against human beings. It is probably best to say that while the antichrists are experienced now as human entities, behind them there is another force making war against God and his people. Commenting on this verse, Brown says:

The author of 1 John has begun a chain of identifications of the Antichrist that would have enormous repercussions in Christian history. While he saw his adversaries as the Antichrist, a century later Tertullian would see his adversaries as the Antichrist, and many centuries later the Reformers would see their enemy (the Pope) as the Antichrist. Often such identifications of the Antichrist with contemporary adversaries were made with the supposition that the biblical writer had seen the future and had predicted the appearance of the adversaries now being encountered. But if the epistolary author demythologized the Antichrist by seeing an apocalyptic expectation of evil fulfilled in a schism that had wracked the Johannine Community, perhaps the time has come to demythologize further his insight by recognizing what he really teaches—not the advisability of continuing to identify one’s Christian opponents as the Antichrist, but the evil of schism and of doctrinal division in the Christian community.

Colin G. Kruse, The Letters of John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans Pub.; Apollos, 2000), 99–102.

But who are the AntiChrists?

1 John 2:19 ESV

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

Not from Us?

2:19 Referring to the antichrists mentioned in the previous verse, the writer says, They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. Those whom the author describes as antichrists were in fact once members of his own Christian community, but they had seceded from it: ‘they went out from us’. Their secession, as far as the author is concerned, only showed that they had never really been true members of his Christian community, and this is reiterated in his next statements. First he notes, For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us, and then he adds, but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. If these people had been true members of his community, which they were not, they would have remained as members, and not seceded as they had done. The last clause in the sentence, ‘but their going showed that none of them belonged to us’, is actually a subordinate purpose clause (introduced by hina plus the subjunctive). Translated literally, it would read: ‘but [their going was] in order that they be revealed that they all are not of us’. As he looks back on their act of secession, the author understands its purpose to have been that the true colours of the secessionists might be revealed.

ILUSTRATION: The spies into the Churches in Cuba their intention was always to spy and get alonside people.

As this passage unfolds we discover hints concerning the activities of these people after their secession from the author’s community. They denied that Jesus is the Christ (2:22), and they tried to lead the readers of this letter astray (2:26). The author’s primary aims are to warn his readers about the secessionists’ attempt to deceive them and to arm his readers against them.

2:20 To arm them against the deception of the secessionists, the author begins by reminding his readers of one outstanding resource they have: But you have an anointing from the Holy One. The word ‘anointing’ is found only here and in 2:27 (2×) in the entire NT. The cognate verb ‘to anoint’ (chriō) is found in several other places, where it refers mostly to Jesus being anointed by God with the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:18; Acts 4:27; 10:38), once to Jesus being anointed by God with ‘the oil of gladness’ (Heb 1:9), and once to Paul being anointed by God, who put his Spirit upon him (2 Cor 1:21–22). Apart from the one metaphorical use of the verb ‘to anoint’ in Heb 1:9, its consistent use in the NT is in relation to an anointing whose agent is God and whose medium is the Holy Spirit. In the light of this, the cognate noun ‘anointing’ (chrisma) used in this verse to describe the anointing that the readers have from the Holy One is best interpreted as a reference to the Holy Spirit with whom they had been endowed by God (when they first believed), and who confirms to them the truth of the message that they heard at that time (see ‘A Note on Chrisma, Spirit or Word?’ pp. 109–10).

The anointing, the author says, is something they have from ‘the Holy One’. This expression is found nowhere else in 1 John, but occurs once in the Fourth Gospel when the disciples say to Christ: ‘We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God’ (John 6:69). It is appropriate, therefore, to interpret ‘the Holy One’ here as a reference to Christ. In the Fourth Gospel Christ promises to send the Paraclete to be with his disciples after his own departure, and the Paraclete, Jesus says, will teach them the truth (John 15:26; 16:7, 12–15), just as the author of 1 John reminds his readers that they have an anointing from the Holy One that will teach them also.

The concomitant of having this anointing is, the author says, all of you know the truth (oidate pantes, lit. ‘you all know’—the word ‘truth’ is not found in the original but has been added by the translators of the NIV). However, at this point in the text there is an important variant reading: oidate panta (lit. ‘you know all things’). Clearly, there is a significant difference between saying to the readers, ‘you all know’, and ‘you know all things’. While it is difficult to decide between the two readings on the basis of supporting manuscript evidence, Black argues, correctly in my opinion, that, on basis of the overall structure of the passage (2:18–28), the second alternative is the correct one. The statement, ‘you know all things’ (because you have an anointing from the Holy One), in 2:20 is balanced by the statement ‘the anointing teaches you about all things’ in 2:27.

Because they are people who know all things, they do not need the author (2:21), and certainly not the secessionists (2:26–27a), to teach them. The reference to knowing ‘all things’ here needs to be understood in the context, in which the subject under discussion is the denial that Jesus is the Christ, God’s Son come in the flesh. Nothing they need to know about these matters has to be learned from the secessionists. Everything they need to know is taught them by the anointing they have received.

2:21 In the light of the acknowledgement that his readers have an anointing from the Holy One, which means they know all things, the author adds, I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, that is, he does not think they are ignorant of the truth and so need him to instruct them by his letter. Rather, he says, [I write to you] because you do know it. The statement that the readers already know the truth is in line with the ancient promise of Jer 31:34

Jeremiah 31:34 ESV

And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

That in the last times when God makes a new covenant with his people they shall all be taught of the Lord (‘ “No longer will a man teach his neighbour, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord’), a promise which is reiterated in the Fourth Gospel when Christ himself declares, ‘It is written in the Prophets: “They will all be taught by God” ’ (John 6:45).

The truth to which the author refers in this context is the truth about Jesus Christ, that he is the Christ (Messiah), something the secessionists were denying and thus revealing themselves to be antichrists (2:22–23). While the author says he writes not because his readers do not know the truth but rather because they do know it, nevertheless he does write to warn them about the lies that are being spread around about the person of Christ. This seems to be the thrust of the author’s additional explanatory statement: that [he writes] because no lie comes from the truth. The secessionists are spreading lies about the person of Christ, and this prompts him to write.

2:22 The liars are now explicitly identified by the nature of their lie: Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Anyone who denies that Jesus is the Christ is a liar. Already in this letter we have encountered allusions to the claims made by the secessionists concerning their own experience (they have fellowship with God [1:5]; they have not committed sins [1:8, 10]; they live in God [2:6]; they are in the light [2:9]), but in this verse, for the first time, we encounter a reference to their teaching: they deny that Jesus is the Christ. On the surface, this looks like the sort of denial a non-Christian Jew would make, not a Christian. Thus we face something of a dilemma. On the one hand, the author indicates fairly clearly that those who make this denial are erstwhile members of his own community and therefore presumably Christians, and on the other hand the denial they make, as it is presented here, is one that no Christian could make.

There are three possible ways to explain this: (i) the secessionists were once Christians but are not Christians any longer,

(ii) the secessionists were never really Christians at all, and

iii) the secessionists are Christians and the denial here is not what it first seems.

The solution with the least problems is that the secessionists were Christians who once belonged to the author’s community, and subsequently left it because they had come to accept a different Christology from that espoused by the author and others in his community. In their own minds they had not ceased to be Christians, but the author believed they had, for no one could hold their Christology and still remain a Christian. The elements of this aberrant Christology are reflected in various allusions the author makes to the beliefs of the secessionists later in the letter. When we put all the elements together, it becomes clear that their Christology involved a denial that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, God’s Son, come in the flesh and whose death was real and vicarious (4:2–3, 15; 5:1, 6–8). However, at different places in the letter, the author refers to the whole by mentioning one part. Accordingly, in the present context, the reference to the secessionists’ denial that Jesus is the Christ is best read as a shorthand version of the denial that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, God’s Son, who has come in the flesh and whose death was both real and vicarious (see commentary on 1:7†; 5:6–7†).

The author, having identified the liars by the nature of their lie, then explicitly identifies the liars as antichrists when he says, Such a man is the antichrist—he denies the Father and the Son. Anyone who denies that Jesus is the Christ is in fact an antichrist, and his/her denial, as far as the author is concerned, is not only a denial of the true identity of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Messiah, but is also a denial of God the Father himself. The author does not spell out here why this is so, but from statements he makes later in the letter we can infer that the denial of the Son also involves a denial of the Father because: (i) it was the Father who sent his Son (4:10), and (ii) it is the Father who bears testimony to the Son (5:9–10). All who deny the Son, and so deny the Father, can no longer be regarded by the author as true believers (cf. 2:19: ‘they went out from us, but they did not really belong to us … their going showed that none of them belonged to us’).

2:23 This verse drives home the dire consequences of embracing the secessionist Christology: No one who denies the Son has the Father. As already noted above, the secessionists claimed to have fellowship with God (1:5) and even to live in God (2:6), but such claims are empty when made by people who deny that Jesus Christ is God’s Son come in the flesh. When people deny the Son, they show that they do not have the Father. The author balances this negative statement with its positive counterpart: whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also. It is those like his readers, who know the truth and acknowledge the Son, who really ‘have’ the Father. The author’s stress upon the connection between denying/acknowledging the Son and a person’s relationship with the Father reflects similar statements in the Fourth Gospel (John 5:23; 14:6–7; 15:23).

2:24 The readers had acknowledged Jesus as the Son of God because that truth was part of the message they heard when they first believed. This is what the anointing they had from the Holy One taught them. In the light of the lies that are being spread abroad, the author gives them this exhortation: See that what you heard from the beginning remains in you. One of the strategies that the author urges his readers to employ against the influence of the false teachers is to hold on to the very message of the gospel which they heard at the beginning. Recalling people who are being faced with false teaching to the message of the gospel as they first heard it, and by which they were converted, is a strategy that is also employed elsewhere in the NT (cf. 1 Cor 15:1–11) and needs to be practised today.

The positive benefits of following the exhortation to allow what they heard from the beginning remain in them are then spelled out in a conditional sentence: If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father (the NIV has abbreviated the text in translation; literally it reads: ‘If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, then you will remain in the Father and in the Son’). This is a nicely balanced conditional sentence in which the author projects a situation in which the message remains in his readers, and they receive the benefit: they remain in the Son and the Father. The emphasis evident in the original language can be represented by the italics in the following simplified paraphrase: ‘If the message you heard remains in you, you will remain in the Son and the Father.’ The great positive benefits of allowing the message they heard to remain in them, then, reinforce the exhortation to do just that.

2:25 In this verse the author further explains the blessings promised to those who let that message remain in them: And this is what he promised us—even eternal life (lit. ‘And this is the promise that he promised us, eternal life’). Elsewhere in 1 John eternal life is identified with, or said to be found in, Jesus Christ, God’s Son (5:11). He, in fact, is eternal life (5:20), the eternal life that was with the Father from the beginning (1:2). Those who believe in the Son have eternal life (5:13). Those who acknowledge Jesus Christ have the Son (and the Father) (2:23), and those who have the Son have eternal life (5:12). To have the Son, to believe in his name, is to have eternal life in the here and now. But, in line with primitive Christian belief, the author can also speak of eternal life as something ‘promised’ to believers, something they will experience in the future (2:25). In one place in the Fourth Gospel Jesus says both that believers have already passed from death to life, and that they will hear his voice on the last day and rise out of their graves and live (John 5:24–29).

2:26 In this verse, for the first time in the letter, the author makes quite clear that the readers are being targeted by the secessionists with a view to attracting them to the secessionist teaching, and away from the message which they heard from the beginning: I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.

2:27a Here the author returns to the topic with which he began this section (2:20–27)—the anointing which his readers had received: As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you. As noted above, the anointing they had received is the Holy Spirit, and here, in the light of the attempts of the secessionists to lead them astray, the author reminds his readers that the Holy Spirit remains in them. By his Spirit God himself indwells the readers (cf. 3:24b), and this indwelling by God is their most fundamental defence against deception. As the author writes later in the letter, and in an analogous context, ‘the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world’ (4:4).

Because the anointing remains in them, the author says, you do not need anyone to teach you. The primary allusion here is to the secessionists who wanted to lead the readers astray. It may be (though this cannot be demonstrated) that the secessionists claimed some special revelation from God to which they appealed in their attempt to influence the readers to adopt their teaching. If this was the case, the reminder that the readers already had an anointing from God, and therefore needed no one else to teach them, would be most apposite. As the author said at the beginning of this section, ‘you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things’ (2:20). Recognising this, the author insists that when he himself writes to them it is not because he wants to teach them the truth, but because they know the truth (2:21).

A Note on the Role of the Spirit

The Spirit plays an important role in the teaching of 1 John, and in a number of ways that teaching picks up important elements of the teaching about the Spirit found in the Fourth Gospel. Before we focus on the role of the Spirit in 1 John, it might be helpful to review the data in the Fourth Gospel concerning the Spirit.

The Role of the Spirit in the Fourth Gospel

Jesus is proclaimed by the Baptist as the one upon whom the Spirit descended and remained (John 1:32–33), possibly distinguishing Jesus from the prophets who might be regarded as those whom the Spirit sporadically inspired to prophesy. Unlike John who only baptises in water, Jesus is presented as the one who baptises in the Spirit (John 1:33). Jesus himself speaks the words of God, and his testimony may be regarded as trustworthy because God has given him the Spirit ‘without measure’ (John 3:34), possibly again distinguishing Jesus from the prophets to whom the Spirit may be said to have been ‘measured’. Jesus’ glorification (= death) was the necessary precursor to the bestowal of the Spirit upon his followers (John 7:39).

The Fourth Gospel makes it very clear that only those who are born from above by the mysterious work of the Spirit can see/enter the kingdom of God (John 3:5–8). The words of Jesus, which are spirit and life, mediate the birth from above (John 6:63). Jesus offers living water which wells up to eternal life within those who believe (John 4:13–14); rivers of living water that shall flow from within believers (John 7:37–39). These two metaphors refer to the effect of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers. Jesus, when speaking to the Samaritan woman, foreshadowed a time when people would worship God in Spirit (no longer at sacred sites like Gerizim or Jerusalem but in the Spirit which Jesus would give) and truth (according to the revelation which Jesus brought and embodied) (John 4:21–23).

In the Last Supper discourses Jesus spoke again of the Spirit, promising his disciples another Paraclete after his departure, one who would be with them forever (John 14:16). The Paraclete is identified as ‘the Spirit of truth’ (John 14:17), whose role has reference to both the internal life of the community (teaching the disciples all they need to know; guiding them into the truth) (John 14:25–26; 16:12–13) and the witness of the community to the world (bearing witness to Christ in a hostile world) (John 15:26–27; 16:7–9). Finally, in his appearance to the disciples in the upper room following his resurrection, Jesus breathed out and said to his disciples, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ (John 20:22).

Summing up, we can say that in the Fourth Gospel the Spirit is introduced to highlight the significance of Jesus as the Spirit-endowed revealer, the one whose word is Spirit and life, the inaugurator of the new worship (‘in spirit and in truth’), and the one who will send the Spirit/Paraclete to his disciples. The Spirit is the advocate for Jesus in a hostile world, the one who strengthens the disciples for their witness in the same hostile world, and the one who teaches them everything and guides them into the truth.

The Role of the Spirit in 1 John

The background to the Letters of John is different from that of the Fourth Gospel. The background to the Gospel is the hostility of unbelieving Jews to Christ and his followers; something which possibly also reflects the tension between the Christian community and local Jewish synagogues at the time of the writing of the Gospel. The background to 1 John is the hostility existing between the secessionists and those believers who have remained faithful to the message of the gospel as it was proclaimed at the beginning. The role of the Spirit in 1 John is related to the problems addressed by 1 John, but, as we will see, it builds upon the teaching about the Spirit found in the Fourth Gospel. There are several important passages related to the Spirit in 1 John, which are discussed in turn below.

In 1 John 2:18–27 the author urges his readers to allow the message they heard from the beginning, when they first became believers, to remain in them. They need to do this because already there are many antichrists in the world, and the antichrists will try to deceive them. Surprisingly, these antichrists are identified as people who were once members of the author’s own Christian community, but they have seceded from it. Facing this threat, the believers are to remember that they also have an anointing from the Holy One. This means that all of them have knowledge (2:20) and therefore do not need anyone (i.e., the secessionists) to teach them, seeing that the anointing teaches them about all things (2:27). As argued in the commentary on this passage, the ‘anointing’ is best understood as the Holy Spirit who has been given to believers.

The concomitant of having this anointing is that the believers know ‘all things’ (see commentary ad loc. for a discussion of the variant reading involved here). Because they know ‘all things’, they do not need the author to teach them (2:21), and certainly not the secessionists (2:26–27a). The reference to knowing ‘all things’ here needs to be understood in the context, where the subject under discussion is the denial that Jesus is the Christ, God’s Son come in the flesh. Nothing they need to know about these matters has to be learned from the secessionists. Everything they need to know has been taught them by the Spirit they have received. There is a close parallel between this teaching and that found in the Fourth Gospel, where Jesus promises his disciples that the Paraclete would teach them everything (John 14:26) and guide them into the truth (John 16:13). It appears that the author of 1 John has taken up this teaching and applied it to the new situation faced by his readers following the secession.

2:27b While the readers do not need anyone to teach them the truth, not the author, and certainly not the secessionists, they do need to be exhorted to stand fast in the truth of the gospel which the Holy Spirit has taught them. But as his anointing teaches you about all things.… As noted above, the reference to ‘all things’ here needs to be understood in the context, where the subject under discussion is the denial that Jesus is the Christ, God’s Son come in the flesh. Nothing the readers need to know about these matters has to be learned from the secessionists. Everything they need to know is taught them by the anointing they have received. The NIV translation of what follows is rather awkward: [But as his anointing teaches you about all things] and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit. This translation moves the focus of attention from the truth of what the anointing teaches to the anointing itself. The text is better translated ‘his anointing teaches you about all things and is true and is not a lie’ (NRSV). This translation keeps the reader’s attention on the truth of what the anointing teaches. Later in the letter the author urges his readers to test the spirits to see whether they are of God (4:1). Here he asserts that what the anointing, the Holy Spirit, teaches them is true, and is not a lie. Accordingly, the author concludes this section by saying, just as it has taught you, remain (menete) in him. Remaining ‘in him’ on first reading appears to refer to remaining in the anointing (grammatically this is possible). However, the exhortation to remain in him is repeated in the next verse, and there remaining in Jesus Christ is clearly meant, suggesting that the same is the case in this verse. Thus, the thrust of this verse is that as the Holy Spirit has taught them the truth about Jesus Christ, so the readers are to remain in him (Christ).

Colin G. Kruse, The Letters of John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans Pub.; Apollos, 2000), 102–109.

Jesus Christ tells his disciples to abide in him

John 15:4–9 ESV

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

See also Mt 24:10–13; Lk 9:62; Jn 6:67

NT writers exhort believers to abide in Christ

Colossians 2:6 ESV

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him,

See also Ga 4:9; Ga 5:5–6; Col 3:1–3; Heb 12:1–3

Abiding in Christ depends upon holding on to his teaching

1 John 2:24 ESV

Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father.

See also Jn 8:31; 2 Th 2:15; 2 Ti 3:14; 2 Jn 9; 3 Jn 3–4

It depends on obedience to him

John 15:10 ESV

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.

See also Mt 7:24–25; Jn 14:23; Jas 1:25; 1 Jn 3:24

It requires living like Jesus Christ

1 John 2:6 ESV

whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

Aids to abiding in Christ

Eating his flesh and drinking his blood

Jn 6:56 Jn 6:35-40 gives the primary explanation of this verse as being a metaphor of the believer coming in faith to Jesus Christ, “the bread of life”. But the verse also reflects the language of the Lord’s Supper.

The Spirit’s anointing

1 John 2:27 ESV

But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.

See also Jn 14:17; Jn 14:23; Ro 8:9; 1 Jn 3:24

Jesus Christ abides in believers

Jn 15:4 It is clear that the believer’s “abiding in Christ” and Jesus Christ’s “abiding in him” are closely connected, although the verse does not make their exact relationship clear. Because of Jesus Christ’s indwelling by his Spirit, believers are able to continue to live as his disciples; as they do so, the reality of his indwelling presence is deepened.

See also Jn 17:23; Col 1:27; 1 Jn 3:24; Re 3:20

By his Spirit

Jn 14:17; Ro 8:9–10; 1 Co 3:16; 1 Jn 2:27

By faith

Eph 3:17–19; Ga 2:20

Results of abiding in Christ

Fruitfulness

Jn 15:4–5 The picture of “bearing fruit” may cover many aspects of Christian life but it includes that of developing Christian character, effective Christian service and mission. These result, not from human effort, but from abiding in Christ.