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2Jn_1:9 brings out clearly the importance of abiding in the truth
2Jn_1:9
2Jn_1:9 brings out clearly the importance of abiding in the truth.
πᾶς ὁ προάγων καὶ μὴ μένων ] προάγειν and μένειν form a natural antithesis; προάγειν in the neuter sense: “to advance farther,” signifies here in reference to διδαχή : “to advance beyond the limits of the (Christian) doctrine,” and contains an ironical allusion to the pretensions of the false teachers to have advanced to a higher degree of knowledge.[11] The Rec. παραβαίνων means: “to pass by anything;” we must supply along with it either τὴν διδαχήν (according to the analogy of παραβαίνειν τὴν ἐντολήν , Mat_15:3), or ἀπὸ ( ἐκ ) τῆς διδαχῆς ; comp. Act_1:25 : ἀποστολῆς ἀφʼ (Rec. ἐξ ) ἧς παρέβη Ἰούδας ; it is clearly unwarrantable to supply the idea ἐντολή out of 2Jn_1:7.
καὶ μὴ μένων ἐν τῇ διδαχῇ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ] comp. Joh_8:31 : μένειν ἐν τῷ λόγῳ τῷ ἐμῷ ; 2Ti_3:14.
τοῦ Χριστοῦ is not the objective (Sander, Ebrard, etc.), but the subjective genitive (Düsterdieck, Ewald, Braune); the doctrine which, proceeding from Christ, was proclaimed by the apostles.
Θεὸν οὐκ ἔχει ] comp. 1Jn_2:23. The doctrine of Christ is the truth; he who has not the truth has not God; for in its deepest source the truth is the living God Himself. Weiss (p. 29) unsatisfactorily interprets ἔχειν of the mere “possession in knowledge,” in place of which, on p. 77, however, he says: “the possession effected by means of the contemplative knowledge of Christ,” as if the latter were identical with the former. By the following sentence the same thought is expressed positively, and is completed by τὸν υἱόν , which is the cause of changing Θεός to πατήρ .[12]
[11] When Braune rejects this with the remark: “there is a bitter truth in fact,” he did not consider in what connection the above was said.
[12] According to Ebrard, this verse is a quotation of the passage 1Jn_2:23. But that this is not so is shown by the manifold deviations, the existence of which can otherwise be explained only by arbitrary conjectures in an artificial way.