Catholic lectionary for 2 January 2006

King James Version (en)

King James Version (en)

1 John, Chapter 2, verses 22-28

²⁰ from those deceits the godly are safe, preserved by perserverance in faith, and holiness of life

²²Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.

²³Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.

²⁴Let 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.

²⁵And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.

²⁶These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you.

²⁷But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.

²⁸And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.

Read more:1 John, Chapter 2

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2:22 Who is that liar - Who is guilty of that lying, but he who denies that truth which is the sum of all Christianity?That Jesus is the Christ; that he is the Son of God; that he came in the flesh, is one undivided truth. and he that denies any part of this, in effect denies the whole. He is antichrist - And the spirit of antichrist, who in denying the Son deniesthe Father also.

2:23 Whosoever denieth the eternal Son of God, he hath not communion with the Father; but he that truly and believingly acknowledgeth the Son, hath communion with the Father also.

2:24 If that truth concerning the Father and the Son, which ye have heard from the beginning, abide fixed and rooted in you, ye also shall abide in that happy communion with the Son and the Father.

2:25 He - The Son. Hath promised us - If we abide in him.

2:26 These things - From Jo1 2:21.I have written to you - St. John, according to his custom, begins and ends with the same form, and having finished a kind of parenthesis, Jo1 2:20-26, continues, Jo1 2:27, what he said in the twentieth verse, concerning them that would seduce you.

2:27 Ye need not that any should teach you, save as that anointing teacheth you - Which is always the same, always consistent with itself. But this does not exclude our need of being taught by them who partake of the same anointing.Of all things - Which it is necessary for you to know. And is no lie - Like that which antichrist teaches. Ye shall abide in him - This is added both by way of comfort and of exhortation.The whole discourse, Jo1 2:18-27 is peculiarly adapted to little children.

2:28 And now, beloved children - Having finished his address to each, he now returns to all in general. Abide in him, that we - A modest expression. May not be ashamed before him at his coming - O how will ye, Jews, Socinians, nominal Christians, be ashamed in that day!

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End of the World

John, Chapter 1, verses 19-28

¹⁵ The testimony of John

¹⁹And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou?

²⁰And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ.

²¹And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No.

²²Then said they unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?

²³He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.

²⁴And they which were sent were of the Pharisees.

²⁵And they asked him, and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet?

²⁶John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not;

²⁷He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose.

²⁸These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing.

Read more:John, Chapter 1

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1:19 The Jews - Probably the great council sent.

1:20 I am not the Christ - For many supposed he was.

1:21 Art thou Elijah? - He was not that Elijah (the Tishbite) of whom they spoke. Art thou the prophet - Of whom Moses speaks, Deu 18:15.

1:23 He said - I am that forerunner of Christ of whom Isaiah speaks.I am the voice - As if he had said, Far from being Christ, or even Elijah, I am nothing but a voice: a sound that so soon as it has expressed the thought of which it is the sign, dies into air, and is known no more. Isa 40:3.

1:24 They who were sent were of the Pharisees - Who were peculiarly tenacious of old customs, and jealous of any innovation (except those brought in by their own scribes) unless the innovator had unquestionable proofs of Divine authority.

1:25 They asked him, Why baptizest thou then? - Without any commission from the sanhedrim? And not only heathens (who were always baptized before they were admitted to circumcision) but Jews also?

1:26 John answered, I baptize - To prepare for the Messiah; and indeed to show that Jews, as well as Gentiles, must be proselytes to Christ, and that these as well as those stand in need of being washed from their sins.

1:28 Where John was baptizing - That is, used to baptize.

NOTES

When reading today's passage, a question arises: why does John the Baptist still give no definite answer to the question asked him about his ministry? Indeed, he had every right to define his mission as...

When reading today's passage, a question arises: why does John the Baptist still give no definite answer to the question asked him about his ministry (vv. 19-23)? Indeed, he had every right to define his mission as prophetic, and such an answer would have fully satisfied the commission sent by the Synagogue to check him (vv. 24-25). But John refuses on principle to speak of his ministry as something having significance of its own. He sees his mission only as a preliminary stage necessary for preparing the people for the coming of the Messiah-Christ, and outside the context of this task John's ministry evidently loses all meaning, including for the prophet himself (vv. 25-27).

And it is precisely this view of his own mission that enables John to see and recognize the Messiah (vv. 29-34). For in order to recognize Christ, it is not enough simply to see Him physically. Outwardly Jesus differed little from an ordinary person. Of course, what He said was not something one could hear every day or from everyone, but the main thing was still not in the words. The main thing was in the Kingdom that He carried with Him wherever He went. Therefore, in order to recognize in Jesus the Messiah-Christ promised by God, one had to touch and share in the Kingdom.

But one can share in the Kingdom only on one very important condition: the one seeking it must forget his own importance, forget that he, as well as his deeds and ministries, can mean anything in themselves apart from the Kingdom into which he wants to enter. Perhaps this is why John does not want to testify about himself as a prophet: all the great prophets of Israel had their own mission, and each of these missions was, in a certain sense, self-sufficient. Each prophet was a figure in his own right, and those around him always noticed this, even when, as was most often the case, the prophets themselves wanted nothing of the kind. But in those times, the prominence of the prophet helped accomplish the main task entrusted by God to one or another of His servants. Now, however, the task evidently consisted precisely in pointing to the Messiah and remaining as unnoticed as possible oneself. John the Baptist succeeds in this: he disappears in the radiance of the coming Messiah, and in the radiance of the Kingdom that the Messiah carries with Him.

In John's Gospel, very little is said about the ministry of John the Baptist. This is especially strange if we remember that its author is a man who...

In John's Gospel, very little is said about the ministry of John the Baptist. This is especially strange if we remember that its author is a man who, before following Jesus, was for some time a disciple of John the Baptist. On the other hand, perhaps for this very reason the evangelist did not consider it necessary to say much about John's personality: it was evidently well known not only to him, but also to those closest to him, so there was no need to write much about John the Baptist. What had to be brought out was the main thing in his ministry, and the main thing was how John the Baptist himself defined the meaning of his ministry, expressing it in Isaiah's words: to prepare the way of Yahweh. By this the prophet meant that his task was to prepare the people for the Messiah's coming. And to prepare for His coming meant, as John the Baptist himself testified, to wash and be cleansed from sin.

Of course, in the prophet's calls one can see something reminiscent of the many brotherhoods of those whom historians of religion call "hemerobaptists," "constant bathers." Such were the Essenes too, who practiced regular purifying washings. If in traditional Jewish practice washing was always connected with cleansing from a specific sin committed by a person, the Essenes (including the Qumranites, with whom John was evidently connected in his younger years) did this regularly, believing that life itself defiles a person.

But in this case the resemblance was only external: unlike the "constant bathers," John did not think that cleansing was an endless process. He was only convinced that a person could be cleansed completely only when the power of God fully transformed his nature. And he was also convinced that the coming Messiah would be able to do this. The prophet evidently saw his own task as reminding people that religiousness alone is not enough, and that a person who, according to traditional ideas, is considered clean and fully sound is not so in God's eyes. Therefore one must be ready to take the next step on the path of resisting one's own sinful nature. A step that opens the way into the Kingdom.

Today not only Christians know about eternal life; almost everyone has heard of it. But what is the apostle speaking about? The answer looks obvious: life after death, which is usually identified with the Kingdom of God. At the same time it is taken for granted that eternal life...

Today not only Christians know about eternal life; almost everyone has heard of it. But what is the apostle speaking about? The answer looks obvious: life after death, which is usually identified with the Kingdom of God. At the same time it is taken for granted that eternal life begins "there," "beyond the grave," in the life after death, while the life we live here can by definition only be temporary. But is this what John has in mind? According to the meaning of the Greek text, "eternal life" is not so much life that continues forever as life that belongs to eternity. And that, of course, is not the same thing.

In principle, life that continues forever can be imagined, at least theoretically, even in relation to an untransfigured human being in an untransfigured world. More than that, the Bible gives us no reason to doubt that before the fall man, still untransfigured but also sinless, possessed what could be called practical immortality: in principle he could die, but death, including death from old age, was not inevitable for him. Yet even this sinless but natural life had no relation to eternity in the New Testament sense. In fact, John, like the other apostles, when speaking of eternity, has first of all the Kingdom of God in mind.

The eternity of the Kingdom is not linear, empty infinity, not a chain of moments stretching from the past into the future, but the fullness of times, where everything that exists exists as a single whole, not broken apart into successive moments as it is in the untransfigured world. And eternal life can plainly be considered only life connected with this fullness of times, rooted in it, and therefore rooted in the Kingdom. For us, if we are Christians, the Kingdom is not future but present. Of course, in our world, which is being transfigured but has not yet been transfigured to the end, it is not the only reality.

Until full transfiguration, the old order of things will also remain in it and make itself known alongside the Kingdom entering the world. But the eternal life of which the apostle speaks can already now be, and truly is, part of the Kingdom, regardless of where its existence unfolds. And at the end of time this rootedness will become visible to everyone, so that each person who has shared in eternal life may receive the fullness of the Kingdom he was seeking.

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