2:22 He here explains what kind of lie he means, the heresy of denying that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, as Simon Magus, Ebion, Cerinthus, and other Judaisers, against whom St. John wrote, both ancient and modern. For, as Bede says, “Compared with this all other lies are little or nothing.” Indeed, what more pernicious lie could be uttered or invented than this, cutting off as it does all faith and hope of salvation? He then that maintains it, is pre-eminently a liar, because he is heretical, sacrilegious, an atheist, an antichrist. The word is commonly used of those who mean one thing and say another. And this is the case with these very persons, for they knew or ought to know that Jesus was the Christ. So writes Tertullian (de Præscript. Heret. 23): “John in his Epistle specially calls those persons antichrist, who said that Jesus had not come in the flesh, as Marcion and Ebion maintained.” And as Oecumenius tells us, “Simon stated that Jesus and Christ were different persons. Jesus who was born of Mary, Christ who had come down from heaven.” St. Cyril (Catech. 6) says that Simon Magus was the author of all these heresies, and then enlarges on them and his impostures. (Cornelius a Lapide)

 

2:23 Whosoever denieth the Son, hath not the Father: In Whom to abide (as Cajetan says), “nor as abiding in Him, for he believes not His eternal generation” (see Dionysius). He has Him not in his mind, and consequently does not confess Him with his life. He seems to refer to John 5:37, and as he says above, cap. 1, “His word is not in us.” And in this chapter, vers. 5 and 24. For it is by faith, hope, and charity that God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit abide in us, and we consequently have them in us, just as a Church has the Eucharist within it, for a holy soul is in truth the temple of God who dwells within it. He here aims at the Judaising heretics, who deny the doctrine of the Trinity, and say that there is but one Person in the Godhead, and consequently deny that Christ is God, and the Son of God. Christ in this very Gospel maintains against them that He is the Only Begotten Son of God the Father. Sec 3. 35, 5.18 seq. 36 seq., 6. 58. For, as Oecumenius says, “Had they known the Father, they would without any doubt have known Him to be the Father of the Only Begotten Son.” And more especially because he who knows not the Trinity knows not the nature of the Godhead to be so full and prolific as to require a plurality of Persons, and demands that it should be communicated to all the Three, so that in taking away One Person you in fact do away with the Godhead altogether. And this is what St. John means here. In like manner, Christ said to Philip, “He that has seen Me, hath seen the Father. . . . Believe not that I am in the Father and the Father in Me?” (John 14:9, 10). Whereby is signified plurality of Persons and identity of Essence, and the intimate and complete indwelling of one Person in another. St. John of Damascus (de Fide, i. 2) terms this πεζιχώζησιδ, and the Schoolmen (after him) circumincessio. See St. Augustine, de Trinit. 6; St. Hilary, de Trinit. Lib. 4; and Ambrosiaster, in 2 Cor. 13.  St. Augustine says, “Each is in each, and all in each, and each in all, and all in all, and all are One.”  St. Cyprian (Exhort. Martyr, cap. 5) and St. Hilary (de Trin. lib. 6) here read, He that has the Son, has both the Father and the Son, that is, wishing him well, and favouring him. St. Augustine has the same reading, but explains it of worship and veneration: “He who worships the Son worships the Father, for he cannot worship the Father who worships not the Son, as it is said John 5:23.” (Cornelius a Lapide)

 

2:24 beginning: Be stedfast in the faith, doctrine, and Christian life, which you received at first. (Cornelius a Lapide) Or that faith, those teachings which you received from the earliest time when the Church was being born by the voice of the apostles. (St. Bede)  in the Son, and in the Father: We must consider that the Holy Spirit is also included in the expression, the Father and the Son. For the Father and the Son are the Breathers forth of the Holy Spirit, and in their Essence, as understood in its full meaning, they include the power of breathing forth the Holy Spirit, yea, its actual exercise. But at this time no question had arisen respecting the Holy Spirit, but merely respecting the Son, and consequently respecting the Father. (Cornelius a Lapide)

 

2:25 Gagneius refers thus to the promise made by our Lord, John 17:20. “For (he says) the promise He has made us is indeed eternal life, since it is eternal life to abide in God, and to enjoy Him here in grace, and hereafter in glory.” Oecumenius makes the word ‘and’ equivalent to ‘because:’ “Ye will abide in the Father and the Son because He promised you this in promising eternal life.” But the first meaning is the best. This is a powerful motive for constancy in the faith. “Let the memory of the promised reward,” says St. Bede, “make you persevere in your work.” “Let us see (says St. Augustine) what He hath promised? Silver, or possessions, or pleasant lands? No indeed, this is not the reward for which He exhorts us to endure. It is eternal life.” And he adds, “God combines threats with His promises, even eternal death, if we disobey Him.” “A powerful man threatens us with imprisonment, with fire, with torments, with wild beasts. But does he threaten us with eternal fire? Dread that which the Almighty threatens, love that which He promised, and then the whole world is a worthless thing, whether in its promises or its threats.” (Cornelius a Lapide)

 

2:26 These things he has written regarding the false teachers, who endeavor to corrupt the integrity of their faith. (Bishop John McEvilly)

 

2:27 It means, you need not go to false apostles and heretics to teach you the truth, for you have already learned it from the Apostles themselves, and that which they taught outwardly, the Holy Spirit must needs teach you within... Bellarmine, (de Verbo Dei, 3.3), who says, “You have no need for a Lutheran or Calvinist to teach you Christian doctrine, because you have been fully taught it by the teaching of the Church, and the aid of the Holy Spirit.”  And St. Augustine thus writes. “I for my part have spoken to all. But they to whom that unction speaks not within, they whom the Holy Spirit teaches not, go away untaught. The outward teachings of a master are a kind of aid and warning, but He who teaches the heart has His seat in heaven. . . . One is your master, even Christ. Let Him speak to you within, when no one is present. For though some one is at your side, yet there is no one in your heart. Let there be no one in your heart, let Christ be in your heart, let His unction be in your heart, lest your heart be athirst in the desert, and have no fountains to water it. The Master who teaches is within, Christ teaches, His inspiration teaches. But where His inspiration and His unction are not, words echo in vain from without.” And so too St. Gregory, expounding these very words, says, “Unless the same spirit be in the heart of the hearer the words of the teacher are useless;” and he adds, “Do not ascribe to the teacher that which you hear from his lips, for unless He who really teaches you be within, the tongue of the teacher labours outwardly in vain.” (Cornelius a Lapide)

 

2:28 we may have confidence: Estius understands the word "we" to refer to the Apostles, who would be subject to the slight confusion of losing the accidental crown of witnessing the success of their labors, in the salvation of their people. Of course, the essential reward is attached to the labor itself; this reward the Apostles and all teachers would enjoy independently of the fruits produced—which are not theirs but God's—should they discharge their functions properly. (Bishop John McEvilly)

 

3:1 sons of God: It is customary in Scripture for those who are justified by divine grace to be called sons of God, — John 1:12, Rom. 8:1, 1 John and begotten of God, James 1:1, 1 John 3:9; and, what is more wonderful, even the name of Godhead is ascribed to them, Exod. 7:1, Ps. 81:6, John 10:35. (St. Thomas Aquinas On God and His Creatures 4.18)  the world knows us not, does not recognize, or love us as his sons; on the contrary, it contemns and persecutes us, because it knew not him, it is because the world, that is to say, worldly, carnal men, neither knew nor loved him, that, therefore, they prize not your exalted privilege of divine filiation, through sanctifying grace. (Bishop John McEvilly)