by Angus Harley

1 John 2:1-2 is one of those texts that is hotly disputed in the extent of the atonement debate. Does it refer to the elect in the world (Calvinism), or to every single person in the world (Arminianism)? There are other theological issues: should we interpret parakletos as ‘advocate’, and, hilasterion as ‘propitiation’?

Sometimes the many theological debates can overwhelm the text. Exegesis is an investigative procedure wherein we ask questions of the text in context, and do not seek merely to solve theological riddles. I put forward a reading of 1 John 2:1-2 from a different angle to the traditional ones. It is concluded that it is a positive model of heavenly intercession that Jesus Christ the righteous is engaged in and not some form of legal advocacy for either the elect or ‘every single person’. This approach impacts how we understand both parakletos and hilasterion.

In aiding our reading of 1 John in general, we will set down some background features.

BACKGROUND FEATURES

Contrasts in John’s writings

John loves to write in a way that contrasts extremes. His Gospel is full of the clash between Jesus the way, the truth, and the life and the religion of Judaism and the Pharisees that relied on the Law and tradition. The book of Revelation is a giant graphic, apocalyptic, description of the invisible warfare between heaven and earth, the risen Lamb and the dragon of the pit. 1 John places true believers in Jesus the Christ over against the lies of the evil one, the antichrists, and the world.  

The depth of 1 John’s contrasts can be confusing, however, for there are some contrasts within contrasts, a bit like a Russian-doll effect. One example found in John’s writings is his use of “world” (Gk., kosmos). It is abundantly evident that in John’s general writings, the world is an evil place, a kingdom opposed to God, his Christ, and to the people of God. Yet, the “world” is also saved by God. So, although there is a contrast between God and the world, there is another contrast between the world and the world: the world in opposition to God vs the world that is saved.[1] Another example of a contrast within a contrast is found here in 1 John. The Christian does not practice sin (3:4, 8, 9), for no one born of God sins (3:9; 5:18), but, the world does practice sin (3:4, 8, 9). Yet, we also read that Christians do sin (1:8-10). John never tries to justify these different forms of contrast, of a contrast within a contrast. Consequently, the reader has to be on his toes in reading 1 John, as John can switch without warning from one form of contrast to another.

Background of John’s Gospel

Whether or not John’s Gospel was written before 1 John, it is certain that John would have taught the contents of his Gospel to his children that he wrote to in 1 John. As the antichrists had come out of the assemblies John was writing to (2:18), they would have been grounded in John’s teaching about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, only to turn against his Gospel teaching, twisting it to their own advantage. Most likely, therefore, 1 John contains themes and doctrines presented in John’s Gospel. For example, 1 John 1:1 refers to the Word of Life who was witnessed from the beginning by the apostolic band, the same Word who made all things in the beginning and who became flesh (John 1:1-3, 14). It is possible the antichrists, knowing the content of John’s Gospel message, wished to turn the Word into a purely and solely heavenly character who did not become flesh. The Word created the world, but did not enter into the world. This brings us to a third background feature. 

Speculating about heresy

Bear in mind while reading 1 John, that John was urging his “children” to flee the evil teaching of the antichrists. Scholarship has not been able to identify with certainty the false teachers, but the general consensus is that John was countering an early form of Gnosticism. A few have argued for John responding to a fake form of Judaistic Christianity. This article will also speculate as to John’s opponents and their views. The value in doing this is to prevent our interpretation of 1 John 2:1-2 from being locked into the predictable parameters of the extent of the atonement debate.

At this moment in my thinking, I’m of the mind that the antichrists of 1 John argued for a twisted form of eternal life that removed the historical Christ of the cross and replaced him with a heavenly Christ who liberated by Spirit-knowledge. Perhaps these antichrists understood that the world was created by God and his heavenly Word (see John 1:1-3). As such, the world was God’s and his Word’s, and not in the evil one’s power (cf., 5:19). This divine world was without sin; its life was sinless, too. The key was to ‘tap into’ this sinless, divine, life in the world created by God through his Word. How to do this? By looking to the Word of heaven who created it. By his heavenly advocacy, he had sent the Spirit from the Father (see John 15:26; 16:7). The role of the Spirit as advocate (parakletos) (John 14:26; etc.) was to teach about the Son (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7). So, to tap into the life of the divine and sinless world of the Word, who himself was one of the divine heavenly sources of knowledge, one had to receive his Spirit and his teaching. To overcome the sin that molested this world (but was not ‘in’ it), the antichrists said that one had to have the new, heavenly, birth of the Spirit to become sinless. In that system, there was no need for a Christ of the flesh who died on the cross, for the world was not in need of purification, nor were true ‘believers’ saved by needing cleansing from sin; they needed only to be initiated into true divine knowledge by the birth of the Spirit. In holding to these heresies, the antichrists lived as they pleased in the world, having tapped into its supposed divine life via the anointing of the Spirit. Their ‘walk in the Lord’ led to them inevitably opposing God’s actual Gospel of the crucified Christ, and to them hating the assembly, and the apostle John and his teaching. They were indulging in a mammoth portion of realized eschatology, in which they had conquered all sin by the power of heaven. Having said all of this, I remind the reader, this is all speculation on my part.

These background factors will stimulate us, nonetheless, in wrestling with 1 John 2:1-2.


EXEGETICAL COMMENTS


2:1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. This statement should not be underestimated in its importance for v2, because John is writing in 1 John to the end of educating and blessing his disciples (2:12; 5:13). John does not want his children to sin. By this he obviously is not promoting the antichrists’ view of Christian sinlessness, for he assumes that they will sin (1:7-10). Yet, as an apostle and the father of his children, John did not want his own to sin, for all sin is unrighteousness and displeasing to God the Father (see 1:9; 5:17).

…And if anyone sins, we have…. This confirms what was said: Christians sin. The reference to “anyone” is not indiscriminate, for it amounts to saying, ‘any child who sins’. This reading is confirmed by “we have”, for it refers to the assembly.  John is concerned, as 1:7-10 makes plain, that Christians do understand that they sin; the antichrists, however, rejected that they were sinners, and probably were making the claim that true sons of God were not sinners. If so, this would underscore why “anyone” is not generically universal, but points to those ‘believers’ who do sin and acknowledge it.


…an Advocate…. Jesus as the parakletos reminds us of the Holy Spirit’s work according to John’s Gospel (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7). However, the Spirit, here, is not the parakletos; Jesus is.

What is the setting for the term parakletos? Most teach there is a legal context. For, there is the “day of judgment” theme of 4:17, and also the fact that the term hilasterion (“propitiation”) undoubtedly conveys a form of judgment (see ahead), as does the concept of the forgiveness of sin. To John, sin is anomia, or lawlessness. It is assumed, on top of this, that Jesus is pleading, interceding, for his own and for the world that God will bring the forgiveness of sins to them.

It is much more likely, however, that John’s language is far broader than the narrower concern of a courtroom and a legal model. He is very aware of the work of the heavenly Christ in the ‘temple’ of heaven itself, as the book of Revelation amply demonstrates (e.g., Rev.15:5). There is, too, the other NT evidence of the book of Hebrews and its prevailing heavenly-cultic imagery. With this in mind, there is every reason to believe that John is utilizing cultic imagery here. One is reminded of the OT cultic imagery of the temple, especially the Day of Atonement. This broader, cultic, background is a better fit, for it incorporates the themes of propitiatory sacrifice and intercession, and the cultic order of the tabernacle/temple also allows for God’s justice and judgment to come to the fore. Moreover, Jesus of 1 John 2:1-2 is acting just like the Great High Priest of Hebrews. It is within this broader, priestly, temple, and cultic, setting that the element of justice is present.

Is ‘advocate’, therefore, the best translation? ‘Advocate’ conveys the notion of legal pleading, defending, and advocating. This is somewhat understandable, even from an OT cultic point of view, given that the Jewish high priest would, as part of the Day of Atonement ritual, offer up prayers for Israel. Is Jesus the High Priest behaving in an advocatory fashion in 1 John? Jesus’ High Priestly service in heaven does not seem to take on the form of pleading or advocacy. His work is a positive one of being the propitiation of sins of his own and of the world. He is, in other words, already accepted as this sacrifice before the Father. There is no need for some form of advocacy, pleading, or the like. He is not aiding, or prosecuting, or defending as a lawyer, but supporting through the victory of his historical propitiation on the cross.

When we look at the book of Revelation, there is not the slightest indication of legal advocacy in the form of Jesus Christ pleading for his people. He is, rather, accepted as the victorious Lamb of God who executes the plan of God for the assembly and for the world. It is the going forth of a Victor. If we look at John 17, which is called Jesus’ High Priestly prayer of intercession, there is no pleading apparent, nor appeal. Rather, the Son confidently prays to the Father, on the basis of the Father’s love to the Son and the Son’s own obedience, that the Father will separate and protect those chosen from the foundation of the world. The same principle of a positive intercessory work is present here in 1 John 2:2, for God’s salvation is certain in his Son, who is the propitiation for our sins and those of the whole world.

In illustrating this point, let’s take another look at the OT Day of Atonement. In praying and doing his work, the high priest was not appealing to God for forgiveness, as is often implied. Instead, the high priest was enacting God’s way of actual atonement and forgiveness. No appeal for forgiveness was necessary, no lament for God to perhaps forgive. The entire sequence of events and actions of Atonement Day were in themselves the guarantee of forgiveness. What was necessary was only that the Law’s pedantic details concerning the sacrifice and holy orders and routine were kept to the letter for the ‘system’ to operate efficaciously, at least in an Old Covenant sense.

Similarly, there is no appeal here in 1 John 2:1-2 being made by Jesus, for this is the Father’s beloved Son, in whom he is well pleased. His Son’s sacrifice is done, over, completed, and already present with the Father in heaven, for the Son embodies, in his own heavenly presence, that sacrificial victory. Jesus’ work implies that the Father most definitely will apply forgiveness to those who come to the Father through the Son. Jesus does not need to make any legal appeal, or defense, because forgiveness is guaranteed by the Son’s actual heavenly propitiatory-presence.

This is not to say that there is no form of defense going on in the text, or that there is nothing about justice and legality implied. Jesus’ defense is performed in unison with the Father against the antichrists and in favor of John’s children and those in the world who will believe in Jesus’ propitiation (ala, John 17). This divine unity is a point we will now develop, and after doing so, we will give more preferable interpretations for parakletos.

…with the Father…. This phrase in the Greek is pros ton patera (“with the Father”). It reminds us of John 1:1, pros ton theon (“with God”). There in John 1:1, the Word is “with” the Father in a very positive, non-advocatory, manner. He is, to speak loosely, the teammate of the Father, the co-worker and co-Creator. They work in unison; it is not two parties doing two different things. The same model is, I believe, found in John’s Gospel’s use of parakletos of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the going forth of the helper, who teaches what Jesus taught, substituting for him, as it were, and does the will of the Father. All three work as a team, in unison, to perform the same goals of teaching, comforting, witnessing, etc.. The same unison-model is set down here in 1 John, for Jesus is “with the Father” as a ‘teammate’, executing exactly the same propitiatory goal as the Father. Except, the Father is the immediate source of forgiveness, the Son as propitiation is the means of forgiveness, and the Spirit is the one who teaches and confirms as a witness this propitiatory forgiveness of God in his Son.

Most likely, the antichrists had their own version of divine teamwork- just as we see in the book of Revelation- but deliberately bypassed its central feature: Jesus’ propitiatory death and its heavenly presence in the resurrected Son.

With all these things in mind, Jesus is not put on the ‘other side’, as it were, of the Father, as in ‘advocate with the Father’; rather, he is “with the Father” as a teammate, as a co-worker. Yet, his work is on behalf of God’s own. So, we have a mixture of the imagery of the divine and heavenly co-worker with that of a defender/victor/protector of believers. I’m going to go with the reading “heavenly protector” in interpreting parakletos in 1 John 2:1-2.

Jesus Christ the righteous…. Jesus Christ the righteous is the heavenly High Priest for the children of John when they sin. It is not, contextually speaking, a work for some other spiritual blessing, such as knowledge. Nor is Jesus marked out here as a teacher.  His role as a parakletos is to use his righteousness as “Jesus Christ” so that John’s children might receive the forgiveness of sins from the Father (1:9). Jesus is “the Christ”, the one promised by the Scriptures to come and redemptively deliver God’s people by bringing the forgiveness of sins. This is the central reason why he came to earth (4:10), and the fundamental principle of his heavenly, High-Priestly service as the parakletos (2:2).

What exactly does his righteousness consist in? It is, in 1 John, primarily an ethical concept, not a legal one. It is concerned with action and doing, not legal status. God is “faithful and righteous to forgive” (1:9); he who “practices righteousness” will know that God is righteous (2:29); the one who “practices righteousness is righteous, just as [God] is righteous” (3:7); “anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God” (3:10); Abel’s “deeds…were righteous” (3:12). So, in 2:1, Jesus Christ is righteous in his heavenly work of acting as the propitiation for sins. His propitiation is not merely a historical fact, in other words, for it is working actively in the present, within heaven, to bring God’s forgiveness to believing sinners.

Jesus’ righteousness is not his divine attribute, therefore. As Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 1:30, Jesus the Christ is and was the embodiment of God’s salvific action in the form of righteousness, redemption, wisdom, and sanctification.

It might seem quite a bizarre way to put things, but it is possible that the antichrists’ gospel was pumping out the lies that true righteousness was by walking the path of Spirit-enlightenment. For, perhaps to these heretics, they taught that the Spirit was the channel for Jesus’ heavenly and divine attributes of righteousness and knowledge. One is, of course, reminded of Genesis 3 and the temptation in the Garden. These proto-Gnostics (or whatever they were) wanted to be like God and absorb his divine attributes. However, God’s ‘righteousness’ was and is exclusively mediated through his Son and his propitiatory sacrifice, for the Son is the embodiment of God’s propitiatory-righteousness for us.

2:2 and He Himself is….John states, “He himself is the propitiation”. In his High Priestly work, Jesus embodies the propitiation that he offered on the cross, just as he is now the embodiment of God’s righteousness, redemption, wisdom, and holiness through the same offering on the cross.

This significantly impacts the extent of the atonement debate. That dispute locks all debaters into the historical moment of the cross alone: for whom did he die when on the cross? Whereas, 1 John 2:2 grounds his propitiation in its embodiment in the heavenly presence of the exalted Christ. This is to say that, the propitiation that Christ secured for us on the cross was brought with Christ, so to speak, into the holy presence of the Father, and now this propitiation is living, just as he is living, “he himself is…”. It does not say, “he himself was”. It follows, then, that God’s act of propitiation in his Son has two stages: the historical propitiatory sacrifice of Christ upon the cross; and its living embodiment via his role of heavenly protector.

Remember, contextually, John is counteracting the antichrists’ false doctrine of sin and their denial of Jesus’ propitiatory death and its present heavenly work. It follows, then, that John was not interested in defending the extent of Jesus’ historical death, but was protecting believers by its efficacy and value for the present.

Another issue needs to be addressed. Arminianism teaches that our sins were entirely propitiated upon the cross 2000 years ago. Yet, John does not know of a propitiation that is not living and acting in the present. Even John 1:29 confesses the living nature of Jesus’ expiatory and propitiatory death, “ “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” ”. For sin to be forgiven in the present, it has to be propitiated in the present; this is done through the living virtue of the historical and propitiatory sacrifice of Jesus which he himself now embodies in heaven.

…the propitiation for our sin…. Some dispute that “propitiation” is appropriate, for sin is not propitiated, God’s wrath is. Others again deny any concept of divine propitiation, for God did not pour out his anger on his Son. It is said, in replacement, that Jesus’ sacrifice expiated our sin, covered it. Also, is God angry with believers that they must have their sins propitiated?

As to the expiation vs propitiation argument, the expiation argument maintains, essentially, that wrath is averted or bypassed by Jesus’ death covering our sins. This argument is true in regard to what Jesus’ sacrifice did: his blood covered our sin. But the elephant in the house is that he did have to die to expiate our sin! Death is God’s sentence of justice, of wrath, upon sin; Jesus became sin for us, bearing God’s wrath unto death (see Gen.3; Gal.3:13; 2 Cor.5:21). God’s wrath is not merely a reaction to sin; it is the expression of his divine righteousness and justice. God cannot switch off his justice and righteousness. God’s anger must be satisfied, for it is impossible to go round it or avoid it. The death of Christ was that satisfaction, and it was because of its propitiatory value that our sins were then covered by his blood. To be pointed, to say that Jesus’ death merely expiated sin is to leave the divine justice unsatisfied.

Coming back to a previous point, if the world’s sins were propitiated on the cross alone, what is the purpose of Christ himself presently being our propitiation in heaven? If God’s anger was, in an absolute sense, removed against all sin on the cross, why is God still angry with sinners? Does not 1 John say that the world is full of hate toward God’s children (3:13)? Is God now immune to this hatred, no longer angry with the world? Of course not! Sin is sin, and God will always be angry with it.

How does this apply to God’s people? Is he still angry with them? It depends on what is meant. He is angry with sin, even sin by the believer. It is unquestionably so. Jesus’ death did not erase God’s anger against his people when they sin. We are at peace with God, in that we are no longer enemies. We are sons! Yet, even sons sins and ‘tick-off’ their Father! Why would God forgive us of our sin if he were not in the first place offended by it, angered by it? Jesus’ historical death was God’s one and only propitiation for sin, a propitiation subsequently brought into heaven by the Son himself to do its propitiating work. When we came to faith in Christ, we were fully accepted by God to be sons and friends, and all our sins cleansed away. But, as Jesus himself teaches in John 13:11, the believer is fully clean but only needs to “clean his feet”; that is, God is no longer hostile to the believer, and is at full peace with him in Christ Jesus, but even Christians can displease the Father and are in need of reconciliation with God and with one another (2 Cor.5:20). Even a father can be angry with his child!

We must put things in that manner for a different reason. The antichrists perhaps came to the conclusion that all God’s anger had been removed against all of God’s children. Of course, this was done differently, in their theology, avoiding the cross, and replacing it with divine knowledge. ‘How can God be angry in any sense with his children?’, they might have argued. Yet, sin is sin, and it will always provoke God’s justice to kick-in in reaction to it, even in the case of God’s children. Thus, the propitiatory value of Jesus’ historical death must always remain in perpetual motion until all sin is removed.

…but also for the sins of the whole world. By far and away the common interpretation of this part of the verse is to say that Jesus died on the cross for every single person in the world. What precisely is indicated by this statement is not always agreed upon. A minority consider it to mean that when Jesus died on the cross, the sin of every human being ever was covered by his sacrifice, even the sin of those pagans before the cross and the sins of every human after the cross. The vast majority are more particular, arguing that it indicates that Jesus’ death on the cross propitiated the sins of every human being who was alive at that time, and those afterward, and that the sins of believers past and present were propitiated.

In stark contrast to these views, the Calvinistic interpretation focuses upon the “world” as the elect: on the cross, Jesus died only for the elect who belong to the world. This view is often accompanied by another: Jesus’ death was sufficient to save every single person, but it is efficacious for some.

We must note that John is writing that believers and the world receive the forgiveness of sins in the present. So, we are dealing with circumstances outside of the historical death of Jesus on the cross. Specifically, Jesus “is” the heavenly embodiment of propitiation for those who come to the Father through the High Priest’s propitiatory-sacrifice. The “world” that will have its sins forgiven is one that comes by faith to the Father, through the son. The reference to the “whole” world is denoting that no one of that world is barred from receiving the forgiveness of God through the heavenly protector. John is not teaching, therefore, that Jesus died on the cross for every single person.

Nor is he saying, in effect, that the elect of the world will be saved. “World” does not denote the elect, but is commonly used in 1 John to denote an anti-God system (2:15, 17; 3:1, 13, etc.). All from the evil world who come to God through the propitiatory-sacrifice of the heavenly Christ will have their sins forgiven. So that, even though it is theologically true that only the elect come to faith in Jesus Christ, 1 John is concerned with God’s determination to save the wicked world.

Just as with Jesus’ death in its present value, the “world” is a ‘now’ system, an evil domain that now opposes God. Yes, it has a past, and it also has a future, but the “world” is the anti-God system in the present, existentially at war with God through its antichrists and the evil one. The world is not a theoretical body of people that were counted like numbers at the moment of Jesus’ historical death.

These things also make untenable the argument that Jesus’ propitiation, according to 1 John 2:2, was sufficient for every single person but efficient for some. It is not at all John’s concern to theologically extrapolate, or even speculate, concerning Jesus’ death. He is concerned with one subject: the actual saving and cleansing victory of Jesus’ current propitiatory-intercession as the heavenly protector.

A Calvinistic counter-argument is taken from 1 John 4:10: it refers to Jesus’ historical death on the cross as a propitiation, and not to its relevance in the present; secondly, it limits the death of Christ to his assembly, “our sins”, which in turn implies the elect.

Certainly, “our sins” in 1 John 2:2 is that of believers. And, of course, believers are the elect. Moreover, Jesus’ death as a historical fact is crucial to forgiveness of sins. These things are undeniable.

Even so, and as already argued, John’s concern is not with the historical moment of the cross in and of itself. The value of Jesus’ propitiatory sacrifice is undoubtedly anchored in his historical death. However, it is its present work that John is concerned with, and that is why he refers, in 1 John 2:2 and 4:10, to the effects of Jesus’ historical death for the assembly in the present.

Moreover, John is not focused on the doctrine of election as such (however accurate the Calvinistic rendition is), but with the fact that God does save the world through Jesus’ death. Certainly, Jesus’ death, as Calvinists correctly advocate, is truly purposeful and not hopefully so. Jesus did not come to the cross to die in the hope of saving sinners. Jesus was sent as “the Savior of the world”. He did not become that Savior. Think, again, of the OT Day of Atonement and the sacrifice; it did not become- on an Old Covenant level- a form of atonement after everything was done; from the outset, the sacrifice was chosen to be the means of atonement. Jesus’ death did not merely ‘expiate’, or ‘propitiate’, or bring ‘forgiveness of sins’; Jesus’ death saved and still saves! Taking away the sin of the world is saving it! Expiating sin is saving the world! Propitiating divine justice and anger is saving the world! Receiving God’s forgiveness is God’s salvation in action!

With these things to the fore, we come back full circle to the most stark Johannine contrast: a world that hates God; yet a world that loves God, for it has been saved by him. The world as an anti-God system stands condemned; yet God’s Son saved and still saves the world when any sinner comes to faith in God through the Son’s propitiatory sacrifice; this takes place in the present through the heavenly protector, Jesus Christ the righteous, who died for us on the cross. The “world” is condemned; the “world” is saved, for it was always the purpose of the Father to save the “world” through his Son’s propitiatory death and work.

[1] Angus Harley, “John 3:16 and Perspective,” All Things New Covenant, March 30, 2024, https://allthingsnewcovenant.com/2024/03/30/john-316-and-perspective/.