Tuesday, July 02, 2024

Christ Qua ἱλάσμος For "Our Sins" (1 John 2:1-2)

In 1 John 2:1-2, the apostle professes that Christ is ἱλάσμος for "our sins," but not for "ours" alone. To demonstrate the referent of the pronoun "our," I believe some good verses to adduce would be the following:

"But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge" (1 John 2:20 ESV).

"As for you, the anointing which you received from him remains in you, and you don't need for anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, you will remain in him" (1 John 2:27 WEB).

"beloved, now, children of God are we, and it was not yet manifested what we shall be, and we have known that if he may be manifested, like him we shall be, because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2 YLT)

1 John 3:2 is a complex scripture, but it seems that the most likely explanation of the passage is that it references the Father, whom anointed Christians will one day "beatifically" see.

5 comments:

aservantofJEHOVAH said...

Matthew Ch.5:8NKJV"Blessed are the pure in heart,
For they shall see God."

Roman said...

What leads you to think we beatifically see the Father as opposed to the Son? verse 1 speaks about the love that the father has given us, but then says the world did not know him (i.e. the Son, i.e. the love that the Father has given us), and then in verse two it talks about him being revealed, which I take as the parousia, so I wonder why it wouldn't be seeing Christ as he is (in his full glory).

aservantofJEHOVAH said...

A tortured interpretation. The love is that we should be children of God. The world hates JEHOVAH'S Children because it does not know our Father. In order to see JEHOVAH as he is we must take on a superhuman nature that our human minds could barely conceive just as our Lord did.

Edgar Foster said...

Roman, 1 John 3:2 is a contentious verse and there are issues with how John uses pronouns. Technically, Jesus could be the referent in 1 John 3:2 but I favor it being God the Father. Not trying to be dogmatic and I've actually posted things about this passage over the years:

Please see the following:

https://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2009/12/clement-of-alexandria-on-1-john-32.html

https://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2017/04/1-john-31-2-and-autos-latest-rendition.html

https://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2019/07/1-john-228-29-who-is-intended-referent.html

https://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2017/03/1-john-31-some-notes.html

https://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2018/09/1-john-and-autos.html

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43727395

aservantofJEHOVAH said...

John ch.5:19NIV"We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one."