1 John 2 Bible study: The world is passing away

The chapter opens: "My little children, I write these things to you so that you may not sin. If anyone sins, we have a Counselor with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous." (2:1) "And he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world." (2:2). These notes give 2:1-2 as the WEB has them and explain them no further than the verses' own words. A line from Favor's Exodus 32 passes through 2:1, and a line from Favor's 2 Chronicles 29 lands on 2:2; Lines that land here names them. Then: "This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commandments." (2:3) (tap commandments) "One who says, “I know him,” and doesn’t keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth isn’t in him." (2:4) "But God’s love has most certainly been perfected in whoever keeps his word. This is how we know that we are in him:" (2:5) "he who says he remains in him ought himself also to walk just like he walked." (2:6). Throughout the chapter these notes explain the letter only from its words, and apply none of it to any teacher, church, group or person, then or now. The words "a liar" (2:4) are quoted as the verse has them, and are a verdict on no reader and no one else today.

2 Chronicles 29:24→leads to1 John 2:2

At Hezekiah's command the priests "made a sin offering with their blood on the altar, to make atonement for all Israel; for the king commanded that the burnt offering and the sin offering should be made for all Israel" (29:24). John writes of Jesus, "And he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world" (1 John 2:2). 1 John doesn't cite 2 Chronicles 29, so setting the two side by side is a reading. It rests on what both verses say about whom the offering is for: 29:24 says "for all Israel" twice, and 1 John 2:2 says "not for ours only, but also for the whole world". Some see in the king's command, an offering made for the whole people, a picture of the atoning sacrifice John says is for the whole world. Others read 29:24 in its own setting, Hezekiah's command for Israel in his day, and draw no line to 1 John, since no New Testament verse names this chapter. 2 Chronicles is written in Hebrew and 1 John in Greek, and no link between their words is claimed.

κόσμοςkosmossay KOS-mos

Strong's gives it, "by implication, the world (in a wide or narrow sense, including its inhabitants, literally or figuratively (morally))". "Don’t love the world or the things that are in the world." (2:15): behind world each time in 2:15-17 is this noun, six times in three verses. 1 John has it 23 times in 17 verses (counted in RP2018, and in all eight editions TAGNT compares).