Catholic Commentary
Abiding in Christ in View of His Coming
28Now, little children, remain in him, that when he appears, we may have boldness and not be ashamed before him at his coming.29If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.
1 John 2:28–29 calls believers to remain in Christ so that at his final appearance they will face him with boldness rather than shame. The passage establishes that righteousness practiced by a believer is the evidence of spiritual rebirth from Christ, not the means of earning it.
Boldness before God at the end is not self-assurance but the fruit of present abiding—and abiding is measured by whether you actually live righteously today.
This logic is deeply anti-moralistic in its structure: righteousness flows from regeneration, not the other way around. Yet it is equally anti-antinomian: the absence of righteous practice casts serious doubt on whether the new birth is real. The verse thus sets up the entire argument of chapter 3, where John will unpack what it means to be a child of God in contrast to a child of the devil, using this very vocabulary of gennētheis ek theou.
Typological and Spiritual Senses
At the typological level, the image of "appearing before" the Lord echoes the great Day of Assembly in Israel's liturgy (cf. Deut 31:11; Ps 95), where the covenant people came into the presence of their God. The one who had kept the covenant could stand; the unfaithful could not. John reframes this in the light of the New Covenant: the "remaining in Christ" replaces Torah observance as the condition for standing before God, not as a rival law but as participation in the one who is the covenant in person.
Catholic tradition illuminates this passage at several levels of depth.
On Parrēsia and the Beatific Vision: The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the confidence (parrēsia) of which John speaks is properly eschatological — it is the posture of the soul before the divine Judge that is made possible only by sanctifying grace. CCC 1041 affirms that "the Last Judgment will reveal even to its furthest consequences the good each person has done or failed to do." The parrēsia John urges is therefore not presumption but the fruit of a life truly conformed to Christ. St. Thomas Aquinas, commenting on this verse, notes that fiducia (confidence) before God belongs to those in whom charity is perfected (Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 129, a. 6).
On the New Birth and Justification: The Council of Trent (Session VI, De Iustificatione) affirmed against the reformers that justification involves a real interior transformation, not merely an external declaration. Verse 29's gegennētai ek theou is one of the scriptural pillars of this doctrine: the person is genuinely re-born, made a new creature, and this new nature then manifests itself in righteous deeds. Grace is not merely forensic; it is ontological. The "born of God" motif anticipates John 3:3–8 and anchors the sacramental theology of Baptism: it is in the waters of rebirth (Titus 3:5) that this divine generation is effected.
On Abiding and Moral Perseverance: St. Augustine, in his Tractates on the First Epistle of John (Tractate 5), interprets menete en autō as the perseverance of charity: "He abides in God who does not abandon charity." Augustine is careful to show that such abiding is itself God's gift — it is the grace of final perseverance (donum perseverantiae), which Catholic tradition (following Augustine and Trent, Session VI, canon 16) distinguishes from the initial grace of justification.
On Christ as Dikaios: The Fathers consistently read dikaios Christologically: Christ is the righteous one who, as the suffering servant of Isaiah, bears sin and restores right order. Pope Benedict XVI, in Deus Caritas Est (§1), grounds all Christian moral life precisely in prior encounter with the person of Christ — a perfect gloss on verse 29's logic.
For a Catholic today, this brief passage is a corrective to two opposite temptations. The first is a vague, sentimental spirituality that speaks of "relationship with Jesus" while drifting in moral passivity — John's imperative menete demands active, daily choices: prayer, the sacraments, Scripture, works of mercy. Abiding is not a feeling; it is a practice. The second temptation is a scrupulous anxiety about one's standing before God at death and judgment. John's answer to that anxiety is not reassuring self-assessment but redirected attention: look to Christ, remain in Christ. The parrēsia he promises is not self-confidence but Christ-confidence — the boldness of the child who runs to the Father because she knows him.
Concretely: examine whether your daily choices are building or eroding your union with Christ. Reception of the Eucharist, regular Confession, the Liturgy of the Hours, and consistent acts of justice toward the neighbor are not "extra credit" — they are the texture of abiding. John's test in verse 29 is bracing: Does your ordinary life — in family, work, finances, speech — actually look like the righteousness of the one you claim to know?
Commentary
1 John 2:28 — "Now, little children, remain in him…"
The affectionate vocative teknia ("little children") is characteristic of John's pastoral voice and appears seven times in the letter (cf. 2:1, 12, 13, 18; 3:7, 18; 4:4). It signals not condescension but fatherly intimacy — the tone of a spiritual father writing to those he has begotten in the faith. The verb menō ("remain," "abide") is the theological linchpin of the verse and, indeed, one of the defining terms of the Johannine corpus. It is not passive resignation but active, intentional perseverance in the personal communion already established through faith and baptism. The present-tense imperative (menete) implies ongoing, habitual action: keep on abiding, do not drift.
The purpose clause — hina … schōmen parrēsian — introduces one of John's most striking concepts: parrēsia, "boldness" or "confidence." In classical Greek, parrēsia denoted the freedom of speech belonging to a full citizen of the polis. In the New Testament it acquires an eschatological and filial depth: it is the frank, unafraid access to God that belongs to the adopted child who has nothing to hide (cf. 3:21; 4:17; Heb 4:16). The antithesis — "not be ashamed before him at his parousia" — is equally arresting. The word parousia (literally "presence" or "arrival") was the technical term for the ceremonial arrival of a king or emperor. John deploys it here and nowhere else in the letter to name the final, visible coming of Christ in glory. The shame (aischunthōmen) John fears for his readers is not embarrassment but the devastating exposure of one who is found unready — the servant caught sleeping, the guest without a wedding garment. The only antidote is present abiding.
1 John 2:29 — "If you know that he is righteous…"
This verse functions as a transitional hinge. The condition ("if you know") is not a doubt but a shared premise — John assumes his readers do know that Christ is dikaios, righteous. The word dikaios here carries its full Johannine weight: Christ is not merely morally upright but the embodiment of divine rectitude, the standard by which all righteousness is measured (cf. 1:9; 2:1, where he is the dikaios intercessor). The inference is then bold: everyone who practices righteousness (ho poiōn tēn dikaiosynēn) has been born (gegennētai) of him. The perfect passive is theologically charged — it denotes a completed action with continuing results: the new birth has happened and its effects abide. The one who practices righteousness does not thereby divine birth; rather, consistent righteous living is the and of having already been born from above.