1 John 2:22

Who is a liar More accurately, as R.V., Who is the liar: the A.V. here again follows the earlier English Versions. But we must beware of exaggerating the article in interpretation, although it is right to translateit. It merely marks the passage from the abstract to the concrete: -Every lie is absolutely alien from the truth. Who then is the one who speaks lies? There are no liars if he who denies that Jesus is the Christ is not one". The exactly parallel construction in 1 John 5:4-5 shews that -the liar" here does not mean -the greatest liar possible". Moreover, this would not be true. Is denying that Jesus is the Christ a greater lie than denying the existence of the Son, or of God?

The abruptness of the question is startling. Throughout these verses (22 24) "clause stands by clause in stern solemnity without any connecting particles."

but he that denieth These Gnostic teachers, who profess to be in possession of the higher truth, are really possessed by one of the worst of lies. For the way in which the Gnostics denied the fundamental Christian truth of the Incarnation see the Introduction, p. 19.

He is Antichrist Better, as R.V., This is the antichrist, or The antichrist is this man:-this", asin 1 John 2:25 and 1 John 1:5, may be the predicate. The article before -antichrist", almost certainly spurious in 1 John 2:18, is certainly genuine here, 1 John 4:3, and 2 John 1:7. But -the antichrist" here probably does not mean the great personal rival of Christ, but the antichristian teacher who is like him and in this matter acts as his mouth-piece.

that denieth the Father and the Son This clause is substituted for -that denieth that Jesus is the Christ". By this substitution, which is quite in S. John's manner, he leads us on to see that to deny the one is to deny the other. Jesus is the Christ, and the Christ is the Son of God; therefore to deny that Jesus is the Christ is to deny the Son. And to deny the Son is to deny the Father; not merely because Son and Father are correlatives and mutually imply one another, but because the Son is the revelation of the Father, without whom the Father cannot be known. -Neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him" (Matthew 11:27). -No one cometh unto the Father but by Me" (John 14:6). Comp. John 5:23; John 15:23. Some would put a full stop at -antichrist," and connect what follows with 1 John 2:23, thus; This is the antichrist. He that denieth the Father (denieth) the Son also: every one that denieth the Son hath not the Father either.