1 John 2:24-25 Let that therefore abide in you, which you have heard from the beginning… I. "LET THAT THEREFORE WHICH YE HAVE HEARD FROM THE BEGINNING ABIDE IN YOU." The phrase "from the beginning" must here refer to the first preaching of the gospel. Let all of Christ you have ever known, seen, heard, handled, tasted, "abide in you." Let all you have learned of Christ — as being with the Father, from everlasting, in His bosom — as coming forth from the Father to reveal and reconcile — as purging your sin with blood, and bringing you to be all to the Father that He is Himself to the Father — let it all "abide in you"; always, everywhere. II. So "YE ALSO SHALL ABIDE IN THE SON AND IN THE FATHER." First, "Ye shall abide in the Son." What the Lord elsewhere enjoins as in itself a duty, "Abide in Me" (John 15:4), the apostle describes as the consequence of another duty being rightly discharged. We abide in the Son, as we may be said to abide in anyone when his words abide in us — or when that which we have heard of him, or from him, from the beginning, abides in us; when we understand and know him by what he says and what we hear; when what we thus understand and know of him takes hold of us, carries our conviction, commands our confidence and love, fastens and rivets itself in our mind and heart, and so abides in us. Thus we abide in the Son precisely as we abide in a friend whom we know, and trust, and love. Let us turn all that we learn into the materials of that personal communing of Him with us and us with Him, which is indeed the essence of our abiding in the Son. All the rather let us do so because, secondly, this abiding in the Son is abiding in the Father; for the Father and the Son are one. Into all that the Son is to the Father, in these and other similar views of His mediatorial character and ministry as the Son, we enter when we abide in the Son. And so we come to be to the Father all that the Son is to the Father. We abide in the Father as the Son abides in the Father. So we abide in the Son and in the Father. And still all this depends on our letting "that which we have heard from the beginning abide in us." It depends on that faith which cometh by hearing, as hearing cometh by the Word of God. III. OF ALL THIS "THE FRUIT IS UNTO HOLINESS, AND THE END EVERLASTING LIFE." For "this is the promise that He hath promised us, even eternal life." The meaning here may be that "the promise of eternal life" is superadded to the privilege or condition of our "abiding in the Son and in the Father," that it is something over and above that held out to us in prospect; or it may be that our "abiding in the Son and in the Father" is itself the very "life eternal" that is promised. The difference is not material; the two thoughts, or rather the two modifications of the same thought, run into one. (R. S. Candlish, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. |
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