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1 John 2:28-3:3 - Children of God and the Hope of His Appearing

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A chapter number interrupts St John’s sentence, but not his thought. He has just warned the faithful about voices that deny the Son and urged them to let the apostolic word abide in them. Now the same command, “abide in Him,” opens toward Christ’s appearing. What remains hidden will be brought into the light: the truth of our life before Him, the Father’s gift of divine childship, and the glory He is preparing in those who hope for His face. St John turns the future coming of Christ into a call for faithfulness now.

Abiding with Confidence at His Appearing (1 John 2:28-29)

28 And now, little children, abide in Him, that when He appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. 29 If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.

“Little children” gives the warning its proper voice. St John speaks as a spiritual father who wants his children ready to meet the Lord, not as an accuser eager to expose them. His first word of preparation is “abide.” The Christian prepares for Christ’s coming by continuing in the Son already received: confessing Him, keeping His word, returning through repentance, and refusing the divided life that says “Lord” while quietly arranging itself without Him.

The verb translated “appears” means to be manifested, to become visible after being hidden. “His coming” translates parousia, a word that can carry the sense of arrival and presence.1 The awaited event is therefore personal. St John does not direct our attention first to a timetable but to Christ Himself. The One who is now loved by faith will stand manifest before us.

That presence produces either “confidence” or shame. The Greek word parrēsia includes openness and freedom of speech.2 St John imagines more than a private feeling of assurance. He speaks of standing openly before Christ, with nothing left to defend through excuses or concealment. This confidence is not the reward of pretending to be sinless. Earlier in the letter, St John has already commanded confession and given us Jesus Christ the righteous as our Advocate (1 John 1:8-2:2). Confidence grows as we remain in the Advocate instead of hiding from His light.

Shame, then, is not the trembling of a repentant sinner who runs back to Christ. It is the exposure of a life that refused to abide. We already know the small rehearsals of that shame: prayer avoided because we do not want a cherished resentment named, worship attended while reconciliation is postponed, service performed for recognition, or a habit defended because surrender feels costly. St John does not leave us staring at ourselves. He points to the remedy: remain in Him now, and let His presence make the hidden places truthful.

Verse 29 joins this abiding to righteousness. Christ is righteous, and those born of Him begin to practice what bears His likeness. Practice does not purchase new birth; it reveals the life received from God. A child learns the ways of the household because he belongs to it. In the same way, truthfulness, mercy, chastity, forgiveness, and obedience become the visible family resemblance of those born from the righteous Christ.

This protects us from both pride and despair. No act of ours makes God our debtor, yet grace never leaves the life unchanged. The proper question is not whether we can present a flawless record at Christ’s appearing. It is whether His righteous life is being allowed to take form in our choices, especially where obedience is hidden and no one will praise it.

Children of God, Hope, and Purification (1 John 3:1-3)

1 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 3 And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

“Behold” makes St John pause before he explains. The Father has not merely shown affection from a distance; He has bestowed a new relation: “that we should be called children of God.” The name is gift before it is task. We do not climb into the Father’s household through spiritual achievement. In Christ, we receive what love alone could give.

A textual detail strengthens the wonder without altering the approved Scripture above. The SBL Greek New Testament prints the words kai esmen, “and we are,” after “called children of God,” while the Robinson-Pierpont form displayed alongside it omits the phrase.3 The NKJV follows the form without those words, then states the same present reality plainly in the next verse: “now we are children of God.” St John’s point is secure. Divine childship is neither an honorary label nor a promise postponed until death. It is the Father’s gift now, though its full glory remains hidden.

This childship is received through the Only-Begotten Son, not alongside Him as though His Sonship and ours were equal. Christ is Son by nature; we become children by grace, adoption, and new birth. That distinction preserves the greatness of the gift. Salvation does not erase the creature or absorb us into God. It brings us into real communion with the Father through the Son, by the Holy Spirit.

“The world does not know us, because it did not know Him.” Here “world” names the order estranged from God that failed to recognize Christ, not the creation God made and loves. St John gives the Church no permission to despise neighbors or cultivate grievance. He frees believers from making recognition their measure of worth. A hidden act of mercy, a costly refusal of dishonesty, a parent’s patient sacrifice, or faithful service that receives no notice may look insignificant to the world’s accounting. Its true identity is held with Christ.

Verse 2 places us between “now” and “not yet.” We truly are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been manifested. The same manifestation language used for Christ’s appearing in 2:28 now gathers our future into His. When He is revealed, the work of grace that remains partly hidden in His children will also come to light. The future is not described as escape from creaturely life but as likeness to Christ: “we shall be like Him.”

The grammar of “when He is revealed” can also be understood as “when it is revealed,” referring to our future state. The immediate link to Christ’s appearing in 2:28 supports the Christological reading preserved in the NKJV, but the sentence should not be made to settle more than it says.4 Either way, the center is Christ: our hidden future becomes intelligible in His manifested presence.

“We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” is one of the New Testament’s clearest promises of transformation in the vision of Christ. Orthodox tradition speaks here of theosis, participation in divine life by grace. St Athanasius uses this verse in an anti-Arian argument and carefully distinguishes the Son’s natural unity with the Father from our received likeness: believers will be like Him “not in essence but in sonship, which we shall partake from Him.”5 We remain creatures, yet creatures filled, healed, and glorified by communion with God.

St John says that we shall truly see Him, but he does not offer possession of the divine mystery as though God could be mastered. St Augustine reaches the edge of what speech can do and writes, “The tongue has done what it could, has sounded the words: let the rest be thought by the heart.” He then names the life created by this promise: “The whole life of a good Christian is an holy desire.”6 Christian hope is desire trained upon the face of Christ. It refuses both empty speculation about the future and contentment with a life that avoids Him now.

That is why verse 3 moves immediately from sight to purification. “Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” Hope is active in the present tense. The person who longs to see Christ begins to bring desires, loyalties, relationships, and habits into His light. The standard is not a private ideal of respectability but Christ’s own purity.

The words “purifies himself” also require the balance of grace and willing response. St Augustine states both sides together: “God does not purify you if you be unwilling,” and, “Thou purifiest thyself, not by thyself, but by Him who comes to inhabit thee.”7 We consent, repent, fast, pray, confess, forgive, and resist temptation; God is the One who cleanses and dwells within us. Cooperation with grace is neither passivity nor self-salvation. It is the child opening every room of the Father’s house to the Father’s life.

The Church’s Voice in Worship ⛪

The Coptic lectionary appoints 1 John 3:2-3 as the Catholic Epistle on Friday of the third week of the Holy Fifty Days.8 The placement is a modest but beautiful Paschal interpretation. The risen Christ has already made the life of the age to come present in His Church, while the faithful still await the full manifestation of what they shall be. Paschal hope therefore becomes purification: resurrection is not only something we confess about Christ, but life received from Him and allowed to take shape in us.

Spiritual Fruit 🍇

Abide where you are tempted to divide your life. Shame grows in concealment, especially when prayer and outward service continue while resentment, dishonesty, impurity, or pride is protected. Bring one guarded place before Christ in confession and prayer. Confidence at His appearing begins with refusing to hide from Him today.

Receive the Father’s name before chasing the world’s recognition. “Now we are children of God” steadies the person whose faithfulness goes unnoticed or whose worth rises and falls with praise. Before work, service, or a difficult family responsibility, pray simply: “Father, let me live today as Your child in Christ.” Then choose the faithful act that may never be seen by anyone else.

Let the hope of Christ’s face examine what you love. St John does not feed curiosity about dates or future conditions. He asks whether the hope of seeing Christ is purifying the person who hopes. When a desire repeatedly scatters prayer, hardens mercy, or makes obedience negotiable, name it without disguise. Hope begins to cleanse desire when Christ Himself becomes more precious than the habit we fear to surrender.

Cooperate with cleansing instead of waiting to feel changed. God purifies, yet He does not treat our will as absent. Take the concrete step grace has put before you: confess the sin, end the dishonest arrangement, ask forgiveness, remove the occasion of temptation, keep the fast, return to attentive prayer, or perform mercy without seeking credit. These actions do not buy the Father’s love. They make room for the life already bestowed on His children.

Carry hiddenness without bitterness. The world did not know Christ and may fail to recognize what belongs to Him in His servants. Unnoticed obedience can become resentment, or it can become communion with the hidden Christ. Offer the unrecognized sacrifice to Him, ask for freedom from the need to be praised, and let the Father who calls you His child be enough.

Footnotes

  1. SBL Greek New Testament, 1 John 2:28-3:3, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20John%202%3A28-3%3A3&version=SBLGNT; lexical orientation for phaneroō and parousia, https://biblehub.com/greek/5319.htm and https://biblehub.com/greek/3952.htm. ↩

  2. Lexical orientation for parrēsia, including its contrast with shame in 1 John 2:28, https://biblehub.com/greek/3954.htm. ↩

  3. SBL Greek New Testament, 1 John 3:1, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20John%202%3A28-3%3A3&version=SBLGNT; parallel Greek editions, https://biblehub.com/text/1_john/3-1.htm. ↩

  4. The USCCB note on 1 John 3:2 records both grammatical possibilities, https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1john/3. ↩

  5. St Athanasius of Alexandria, Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia, Part III, section 53, https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.xxii.ii.iii.html#xxii.ii.iii-p87. Athanasius cites 1 John 3:2 within an anti-Arian argument; this is a thematic theological use, not a direct homily on the passage. ↩

  6. St Augustine, Homily 4 on the First Epistle of John, section 6, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/170204.htm. ↩

  7. St Augustine, Homily 4 on the First Epistle of John, section 7, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/170204.htm. ↩

  8. CopticChurch.net, Catholic Epistle for May 8, 2020, https://copticchurch.net/readings?g_year=2020&g_month=05&g_day=08. The source verifies the reading range; the Paschal rationale offered in the guide is theological interpretation. ↩

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