1 John 2:23

23. After ἔχει add ὁ ὁμολογῶν τὸν υἱὸν καὶ τὸν πατέρα ἔχει with [504][505][506][507] and Versions against [508][509]. Omission through homoeoteleuton.

[504] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.
[505] 5th century. Brought by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, from Alexandria, and afterwards presented by him to Charles I. in 1628. In the British Museum. All three Epistles.
[506] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.
[507] 5th century. A palimpsest: the original writing has been partially rubbed out and the works of Ephraem the Syrian have been written over it. In the National Library at Paris. Part of the First and Third Epistles; 1 John 1:1 to 1 John 4:2; 3 John 1:3-14. Of the whole N.T. the only Books entirely missing are 2 John and 2 Thessalonians.

[508] 9th century. All three Epistles.
[509] 9th century. All three Epistles.

23. The previous statement is emphasized by an expansion of it stated both negatively and positively. The expansion consists in declaring that to deny the Son is not merely to do that, and indeed not merely to deny the Father, but also (οὐδέ) to debar oneself from communion with the Father. So that we now have a third consequence of denying that Jesus is the Christ. To deny this is (1) to deny the Son, which is (2) to deny the Father, which is (3) to be cut off from the Father. ‘To have the Father’ must not be weakened to mean ‘to hold as an article of faith that He is the Father’; still less, ‘to know the Father’s will’. It means, quite literally, ‘to have Him as his own Father’. Those who deny the Son cancel their own right to be called τέκνα Θεοῦ: they ipso facto excommunicate themselves from the great Christian family in which Christ is the Brother, and God is the Father, of all believers. ‘To as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God’ (John 1:12). The verse is a condemnation of those who insist on the Fatherhood of God and yet deny the Divinity of Jesus Christ. And the condemnation is made with special comprehensiveness: not merely ὁ� but πᾶς ὁ�. As if the Apostle would say, ‘Some may think that there are exceptions to this principle; but it holds good of every one’. Comp. 1 John 2:29; 1 John 3:4; 1 John 3:6; 1 John 3:9-10; 1 John 3:15; 1 John 4:7; 1 John 5:1; 1 John 5:4; 1 John 5:18; 2 John 1:9.

ὁ ὁμολογῶν. He that confesseth, as R.V. The translation of ὁμολογεῖν should be uniform in 1 John 1:9; 1 John 4:2-3; 1 John 4:15; 2 John 1:7. It is surprising that A.V., while admitting the passage about the three Heavenly Witnesses (1 John 5:7) without any mark of doubtfulness, prints the second half of this verse in italics, as if there were nothing to represent it in the Greek. Excepting the ‘but’, the sentence is undoubtedly genuine, being found in all the best MSS. ([573][574][575][576]) and many other authorities. A few authorities omit it accidentally, owing to the two halves of the verse ending in the Greek with the same three words (τὸν πατἑρα ἔχει). Tyndale, Luther, and the Genevan omit the sentence: Cranmer and the Rhemish retain it; Cranmer marking it as wanting authority, and both omitting ‘but’, which Purvey inserts, although there is no conjunction in the Vulgate. Other Versions insert different conjunctions. The asyndeton is impressive and continues through three verses, 22, 23, 24. “The sentences fall on the reader’s soul like notes of a trumpet. Without cement, and therefore all the more ruggedly clasping each other, they are like a Cyclopean wall” (Haupt). It would be possible to translate, ‘He that confesseth, hath the Son and the Father’ (comp. 2 John 1:9): but this is not probable.

[573] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.
[574] 5th century. Brought by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, from Alexandria, and afterwards presented by him to Charles I. in 1628. In the British Museum. All three Epistles.
[575] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.
[576] 5th century. A palimpsest: the original writing has been partially rubbed out and the works of Ephraem the Syrian have been written over it. In the National Library at Paris. Part of the First and Third Epistles; 1 John 1:1 to 1 John 4:2; 3 John 1:3-14. Of the whole N.T. the only Books entirely missing are 2 John and 2 Thessalonians.