UTN uW Translation Notes:

1 John 2 Chapter Introduction

Structure and Formatting

1. Genuine believers obey God and love one another (2:1–17, continuing from 1:5)
2. It is false teaching to deny that Jesus is the Messiah (2:18–2:27)
3. Genuine children of God do not sin (2:28–29, continues through 3:10)

In order to show that John is writing something like poetry in 2:12–14, some translations set the statements in those verses farther to the right than the rest of the text, and they begin a new line at the start of each statement.

Religious and Cultural Concepts in This Chapter

Antichrist

In 2:18 and 2:22, John writes both about a specific person called the Antichrist and about many people who will be “antichrists.” The word “antichrist” means “opposed to Christ.” The Antichrist is a person who will come just before the return of Jesus and imitate Jesus’ work, but he will do that for evil purposes. Before that person comes, there will be many other people who work against Christ. They too are called “antichrists,” but as a description rather than as a name. (See: antichrist and lastday and evil)

Textual Issues in This Chapter

In 2:20, some ancient manuscripts read “you all know,” and that is the reading that ULT follows. However, other ancient manuscripts read “you know all things.” It seems more likely, based on everything else in the letter, that “you all know” is the correct original reading, since John is countering the claim of false teachers to know more than other believers. The reading “you know all things” seems to have arisen because copyists felt a need to have an object for the verb “know.” Nevertheless, if a translation of the Bible already exists in your region, consider using whichever reading is found in that version. If a translation does not already exist, we recommend that you follow the reading in the ULT text. (See: translate-textvariants)