1 John 2:18-20

1599 Geneva Bible

Footnotes

1. 1 John 2:18 Now he turneth himself to little children, which notwithstanding are well instructed in the sum of religion, and willeth them by divers reasons to shake off slothfulness, which is too too familiar with that age.
2. 1 John 2:18 He useth this word (little) not because he speaketh to children, but to allure them the more by using such sweet words.
3. 1 John 2:18 First, because the last time is at hand, so that the matter suffereth no delay.
4. 1 John 2:18 Secondly because Antichrists, that is, such as fall from God, are already come, even as they heard that they should come. And it was very requisite to warn that unheedy and wariless age of that danger.
5. 1 John 2:19 A digression against certain offenses and stumbling blocks, whereat that rude age especially might stumble and be shaken. Therefore that they should not be terrified with the soul falling back of certain, first he maketh plain unto them, that although such as fall from God and his religion, had place in the Church, yet they were never of the Church, because the Church is the company of the elect which cannot perish, and therefore cannot fall from Christ.
6. 1 John 2:19 So then the elect can never fall from grace.
7. 1 John 2:19 Secondly, he showeth that these things fall out to the profit of the Church, that hypocrites may be plainly known.
8. 1 John 2:20 Thirdly, he comforteth them to make them stand fast, insomuch as they are anointed by the holy Ghost with the true knowledge of salvation.
9. 1 John 2:20 The grace of the holy Ghost, and this is a borrowed kind of speech taken from the anointings used in the Law.
10. 1 John 2:20 From Christ who is peculiarly called holy.