1 John 2–3

Christ Our Helper

2I am writing this to you, my children, so that you will not sin; but if anyone does sin, we have someone who pleads with the Father on our behalf—Jesus Christ, the righteous one. ²And Christ himself is the means by which our sins are forgiven, and not our sins only, but also the sins of everyone.

³If we obey God’s commands, then we are sure that we know him. ⁴Those who say that they know him, but do not obey his commands, are liars and there is no truth in them. ⁵All those who obey his word are people whose love for God has really been made perfect. This is how we can be sure that we are in union with God: ⁶those who say that they remain in union with God should live just as Jesus Christ did.

The New Command

^7*My dear friends, this command I am writing to you is not new; it is the old command, the one you have had from the very beginning. The old command is the message you have already heard. ⁸However, the command I am now writing to you is new, because its truth is seen in Christ and also in you. For the darkness is passing away, and the real light is already shining.

⁹Those who say that they are in the light, yet hate their brothers and sisters, are in the darkness to this very hour. ¹⁰Those who love their brothers and sisters live in the light, and so there is nothing in them that will cause someone else^b to sin. ¹¹But those who hate their brothers and sisters are in the darkness; they walk in it and do not know where they are going, because the darkness has made them blind.

¹²I am writing to you, my children, because your sins are forgiven for the sake of Christ. ¹³I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who has existed from the beginning. I am writing to you, young people, because you have defeated the Evil One.

¹⁴I am writing to you, my children, because you know the Father. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who has existed from the beginning. I am writing to you, young people, because you are strong; the word of God lives in you, and you have defeated the Evil One.

¹⁵Do not love the world or anything that belongs to the world. If you love the world, you do not love the Father. ¹⁶Everything that belongs to the world—what the sinful self desires, what people see and want, and everything in this world that people are so proud of—none of this comes from the Father; it all comes from the world. ¹⁷The world and everything in it that people desire is passing away; but those who do the will of God live for ever.

The Enemy of Christ

¹⁸My children, the end is near! You were told that the Enemy of Christ would come; and now many enemies of Christ have already appeared, and so we know that the end is near. ¹⁹These people really did not belong to our fellowship, and that is why they left us; if they had belonged to our fellowship, they would have stayed with us. But they left so that it might be clear that none of them really belonged to us.

²⁰But you have had the Holy Spirit poured out on you by Christ, and so all of you know the truth. ²¹I am writing to you, then, not because you do not know the truth; instead, it is because you do know it, and you also know that no lie ever comes from the truth. ²²Who, then, is the liar? It is those who say that Jesus is not the Messiah. Such people are the Enemies of Christ—they reject both the Father and the Son. ²³For all those who reject the Son also reject the Father; those who accept the Son have the Father also.

²⁴Be sure, then, to keep in your hearts the message you heard from the beginning. If you keep that message, then you will always live in union with the Son and the Father. ²⁵And this is what Christ himself promised to give us—eternal life.

²⁶I am writing this to you about those who are trying to deceive you. ²⁷But as for you, Christ has poured out his Spirit on you. As long as his Spirit remains in you, you do not need anyone to teach you. For his Spirit teaches you about everything, and what he teaches is true, not false. Obey the Spirit’s teaching, then, and remain in union with Christ.

²⁸Yes, my children, remain in union with him, so that when he appears we may be full of courage and need not hide in shame from him on the Day he comes. ²⁹You know that Christ is righteous; you should know, then, that everyone who does what is right is God’s child.

Children of God

3^*See how much the Father has loved us! His love is so great that we are called God’s children—and so, in fact, we are. This is why the world does not know us: it has not known God. ²My dear friends, we are now God’s children, but it is not yet clear what we shall become. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he really is. ³Everyone who has this hope in Christ keeps himself pure, just as Christ is pure.

⁴Whoever sins is guilty of breaking God’s law, because sin is a breaking of the law. ^5*You know that Christ appeared in order to take away sins,^c and that there is no sin in him. ⁶So everyone who lives in union with Christ does not continue to sin; but whoever continues to sin has never seen him or known him.

⁷Let no one deceive you, my children! Whoever does what is right is righteous, just as Christ is righteous. ⁸Whoever continues to sin belongs to the Devil, because the Devil has sinned from the very beginning. The Son of God appeared for this very reason, to destroy what the Devil had done.

⁹None of those who are children of God continue to sin, for God’s very nature is in them; and because God is their Father, they cannot continue to sin. ¹⁰This is the clear difference between God’s children and the Devil’s children: all who do not do what is right or do not love others are not God’s children.

Love One Another

^11*The message you heard from the very beginning is this: we must love one another. ^12*We must not be like Cain; he belonged to the Evil One and murdered his own brother Abel. Why did Cain murder him? Because the things he himself did were wrong, but the things his brother did were right.

¹³So do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the people of the world hate you. ^14*We know that we have left death and come over into life; we know it because we love our brothers and sisters. Whoever does not love is still under the power of death. ¹⁵All who hate others are murderers, and you know that murderers have not got eternal life in them. ¹⁶This is how we know what love is: Christ gave his life for us. We too, then, ought to give our lives for our brothers and sisters! ¹⁷Rich people who see a brother or sister in need, yet close their hearts against them, cannot claim that they love God. ¹⁸My children, our love should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action.

Courage before God

¹⁹This, then, is how we will know that we belong to the truth; this is how we will be confident in God’s presence. ²⁰If our conscience condemns us, we know that God is greater than our conscience and that he knows everything. ²¹And so, my dear friends, if our conscience does not condemn us, we have courage in God’s presence. ²²We receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. ^23*What he commands is that we believe in his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as Christ commanded us. ²⁴Those who obey God’s commands live in union with God and God lives in union with them. And because of the Spirit that God has given us we know that God lives in union with us.